Heartfelt Paper Airplanes
by KTwain
Summary: After Booth reads her diary, Brennan is left mostly isolated from the rest of the lab. She hardly speaks to anyone until she begins receiving replies to the pages of her life as letters in the mail.
1. How Long Will This Take?

**Hello again! For all cruising and finding this story, it is a sequel. Like numero dos. Like walking into LOTR during the battle at Helm's Deep. That will only make sense to some of you (the hot nerd following, am I right?) The first half was entitled The Letterbox and can be found on my author page. **

**For the rest of you who have been patiently waiting, I bid you a welcome back. Like the previous first chapter, this too, has no first letter. After Booth's horrible realization for redemption, this story is entitled Heartfelt Paper Airplanes.**

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><p>She knew him by his scent. It was that overbearing smell of cologne, the slight reek of perspiration and the very faint whiff of ink that heralded the boy who delivered all the mail to the Jeffersonian. She hardly looked up from the file she was reading; she hardly looked up at anyone anymore.<p>

"Just put it on my desk," she told him absently as she licked the corner of a thumb to help turn a page. The rustling of her own paper confused her for a second as she listened to the crinkling of mail being…crammed? She looked up in astonishment to see the young man attempting to shove two letters - _two_ - into the letterbox.

Weeks before, Angela had guiltily dropped it by her office and Brennan had uncaringly thrown it in a corner on a shelf just inside the door. She hated the sight of it, almost perfect in the consistencies, but sometimes it caught the light a certain way and Brennan could tell - from long years of lonely practice - that it wasn't quite the same, it wasn't quite _hers_. But she couldn't bring herself to move it. It stood where she had first thrown it, which she regretted since it now rested directly in her line of sight.

"Excuse me," she said, more out of politeness than anything, since she wasn't feeling the need to pardon his actions at all, "what do you think you're doing?"

The boy, no older than twenty two, flushed a bright pink, almost as radiant as the crimson she felt roiling off of her face.

"The man - um, your coworker - he said that all letters addressed to you - you know, personal like - are supposed to be put in the box."

"The man?" Brennan echoed hollowly, skeptically. The boy nodded enthusiastically, eager to pin the blame on a more able victim.

"A man you work with. Tall. Six one, six two, brown hair, funny tie-"

"I know who you're talking about," Brennan interrupted quickly. Her heart burned with the knowledge.

"So…" the young mail carrier gulped. "Is it okay then if I keep putting them in here?"

"Them?"

"The letters miss…ma'am, I mean doctor?" He trailed off his tongue fumble with a rising tone much like Parker- Brennan cut off the thought viciously. Parker would only lead to inevitable thoughts of _him_. And time with him. And memories. Good memories. That was the problem. They were memories she missed. She hated, _hated, _absolutely abhorred and loathed herself for being so weak as to actually miss him. But she did, every heart throbbing second of every century long day.

"How long have you been delivering these letters?"

"You mean you haven't noticed?" the boy asked in absolute disbelief. The steely glare he got in response shut him up. He gulped. "Just a couple of weeks. Maybe five or six letters. A couple. But there were some in there already."

"_What?"_ Brennan shoved herself back from her desk and stood. Her abrupt movement seemed to be propelling the young mail carrier away.

"I'll just…be going…do you want me to keep delivering?" But he didn't wait for a response upon seeing her face and scrambled away.

Brennan approached her - now Booth's - letterbox. It was almost ironic, how her very innermost thoughts and secrets of the heart had been replaced by Booth's replicas. She squelched the thought viciously. Touching it was almost beyond her, but she managed to gasp in a last breath before her fingers glued themselves to the smooth satiny collage of paper maché. It was silky and bumpy at the same time, with a glossy texture that slid over the new ridges and valleys. The pictures might have been the same, but the feel of the box was totally different. The cardboard beneath was more firm, sturdy, without the wear and aging of years. The photographs and cutouts, wrinkled upon being coated in a shiny topical glue, had folded in new and exotic ways. Brennan let her fingers wander for a moment, entranced at the experience, before she seized the box up to shake it.

Almost as soon as she had lifted it, her fingers found the new bottom Angela had obviously put in for this very purpose. The bottom, papered over, had a door. The door had a latch made out of a big, flat, black button. Fumbling a moment, Brennan then dexterously flipped open the new little hatch. She was floored at the rain of letters that hit the floor, missing the end table the box usually rested on.

Forgetting herself for a moment, she set the box down with one hand thoughtlessly before fluidly dropping into a crouch, her heeled boots making her wobble a moment as she automatically compensated for her unevenly distributed weight. She put two fingers to the floor instantly before rocking back onto her heels to survey her new trove.

There were at least ten letters. Probably a few more. She had expected only two or three, from the messenger's tone. Although Brennan hadn't read any of the letters she had penned since the day she had written them, she frowned, because many of the already drafted letters – obviously from her family and friends – had different titles. She didn't recognize a single one. She wondered if their titles meant as much to their authors as they had to her.

She scooped them all back up, hesitated, and randomly threw one on her desk and paused. The one on the top of the pile was in Booth's untidy scrawl. _Letter to a Partner. _Of course it was. She debated whether she should open it first, previous to all of the others. She didn't know what Booth had done, or in what order he read hers. The letter was ridiculously tantalizing, laying Booth bare when she had been flayed to the quick. She carefully put it back, satisfied with whatever letter she had already thrown on her desk. She was lying to herself. She'd never be _satisfied_. Unless this letter was truly exceptional. She almost snorted. It wasn't as if Booth was very good with the written word.

She wondered where the other letters were. She had already realized – really it wasn't that hard – what Booth had done. She had sneered at him, and given him the tacit permission he of course had seized. There was still one problem; she knew many of the recipients of the letters were dead. Who would answer them? Brennan clutched a heel of a hand over her breastbone. She had never realized it until this moment, but she wanted the letters answered. She wanted to understand her life more than she had ever thought possible.

She had spent so very long running from what she thought would hurt her to know, and here she was, holding onto all her secrets, all of her pain, and longing – quite literally – to open it up again. She closed the tiny button door to her letterbox, the others neatly folded at the bottom, as she approached her desk warily. Little known to her, Booth had felt the same way about the first letter.

"Slow down!" called a woman's voice outside her door. She disregarded it; it obviously wasn't directed at her. She hesitated, and sank down behind her desk. She felt her knees creak a little and winced as she settled herself. There really was no need to wear high heeled boots if she wasn't going to see Booth. Disgusted with herself, she unzipped them and left them peeled off under her desk. Similarly, her dress felt tawdry and cheap. What was she thinking? This wasn't _her. _

Suddenly changing clothes was the most important task she needed to accomplish. She swallowed. She stood, her tights wet with the intrinsic sweat that accompanied knee high leather, and strode purposefully towards her door. She shut it against any intrusions.

A little boy's voice still managed to slip in.

"Dad!"

Brennan yanked the door open again, hard. What was _he_ doing here? Against her express orders? She had to remind herself she was not actually a queen, for all that he treated her like one. Still, this was the Lab. Her space. Her Lab. He was not part of it. Not anymore.

She felt like a peeping Tom as she cracked the door just enough to put her eye to the opening. She watched, feeling her face shift in unpleasant ways she knew had to do with that homesick look Angela sometimes got when she talked about the art museums in Dallas and Austin, or when Booth reminisced about Philly – Brennan squashed that thought cruelly. It made an ugly little impact in her mind.

"Dad, Dad, Dad!" trilled Parker – for of course that's who it had to be – as he caught his father's hands. Booth had just emerged from Cam's office as she stood, hip cocked behind him, smiling a self satisfied smile at the scene. Brennan wanted to slap that stupid smirk right off her face. She had to remind herself that Cam had known Booth for a long, long time before he had ever walked into her life. She still felt the urge to kick her. _That's normal after pursuits,_ Booth's amused voice echoed in her mind, memory unbidden punching her in the throat so she could hardly breathe, _We try not to do that. _

She slammed the door but regretted it. The blinds rattling made her realize they were open; she turned away but still felt four pairs of curious eyes on her as she stalked over to her computer. She almost sat, but then kept walking towards the other wall. A pair of jeans was folded in a cabinet. She huffed back down, perfectly aware how irrationally childish she was being and stripped off her black tights under her desk. She had just managed to shove one leg through a pant hole when the door opened.

"Bones, Bones, Bones, Bones!" Parker accentuated every long striding step with her name. She quickly let her jeans drop to the floor and shimmied out of that leg. She didn't want to change in front of Booth's _son._ She swallowed back a flash of regret. She realized this was the first time anyone had called her _Bones_ in weeks.

"Hello Parker," she smiled politely.

"I finished Dracula_!_" he announced. His smile was broad as he puffed out his chest. It was most probably the longest book he had ever read. "It was the longest book I've ever read!" he assured her. She suppressed a smile and the thought that she really did love Parker.

"What did you think?" she asked composedly. At least she hoped she was composed. Booth's solid, skulking presence was impossible to miss in any doorway.

"Parts of it were boring," Parker frowned. "And some parts they talked in spelling I didn't understand." Brennan let herself laugh, even in front of him. She very carefully didn't look at him because she knew that he hadn't stopped looking at her.

"Well what about the other parts?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound too much like an English teacher quizzing him. Parker lit up like the Christmas tree he had once delivered.

"They were _awesome_. They cut some girl's head off! She ate babies! And there was this guy who could become mist and kill you with his _mind_. And he drove this guy so crazy he ate like fifty bajillion birds – _while they were alive_. Gross!" Brennan had to reevaluate if the macabre was really quite good for Parker. He sounded suspiciously thrilled.

Booth was on her train of thought before it was completed.

"No Bones, you didn't make a little serial killer. All boys are like that." She flinched at the name. He noticed and his voice fell off. He had squashed, she could tell, whatever else he had wanted to say.

"Also," Parker said dramatically, as he flopped spine first onto her couch and grinned up at her while his head lolled at the ceiling, "we have to _dance_ for class." He said it in a tone that suggested the two were somehow related. Brennan couldn't tell how. She frowned. She scratched an earlobe. She furrowed her eyebrows the way she did when she didn't want other people to know she was confused too.

"Excuse me?" she finally managed. Booth smirked. She studiously ignored him and his little grin wilted. She almost felt bad. She glanced a darting pass at the letterbox. She fortified her animosity.

"Yeah I know right?" Parker added expressively, as if he were explaining himself quite well. Brennan felt her head slowly starting to shake as she squinted.

"No," she said slowly, still shaking her head in that smooth, metronomic gesture, "I don't know."

Parker rolled his eyes. "Well of course you don't!" he exclaimed, "I haven't told you what we're doing yet." Brennan changed her slow shake to a slow nod, hoping he'd continue before she had to figure out another socially acceptable way to make conversation without actually making conversation. With words.

Parker took it for fact she was interested. "We have to put a presentation together based on a _song,_" he moaned. "So lame, right?" Brennan had stopped nodding. She took this as her cue to continue her glacial nod as she turned her face slightly to the right, eyeing him more with her left eye as her right flicked towards Booth.

He grinned conspiratorially, like old times. She had been checking more to see if he was following this, or that he was still there. His face looked more horrible than it had when he hadn't been sleeping. She turned her face suddenly sharply the other way towards Parker and kept nodding.

"Well there are _girls_ in our group."

"Ooh," Booth sing-songed, trying to edge into their dialogue.

"Dad," snapped Parker. Booth wilted. Parker rubbed his mouth and Booth's eyebrows drew down in a thundercloud. Brennan lifted her own eyebrows, nonplussed. She had never seen Booth and Parker on anything but perfect terms.

"Parks, I gotta tell your Mom a few last things we need to wrap up. You gonna be cool here?" Parker gave him quite a cool glance to accentuate his shrug.

"I'm cool," he said, squirming into an upright position that was half sitting, half slouching. Brennan straightened her spine in over correction behind her desk as she wondered what to do about her jeans. Upon seeing Booth, she desperately wanted them on more than ever. She couldn't remember the last time she had worn jeans.

"What's wrong with girls?" Brennan said. Parker grinned and his smile was so absolutely _Boothy_ Brennan almost shoved her fingers over her temples to stop the headache that started pounding.

"Aw, there's nothing wrong with _you,_" Parker assured her. "It's _other_ girls."

"You like Cam," Brennan said, still confused.

"But she's like…my _aunt_," Parker groaned. "Seriously, it's not the same. We're friends." He gestured between himself and her. She swallowed hard, feeling as if memory had ruptured her windpipe again. Parker's smile hitched. "Aren't we?"

"Of course," she smiled painfully. That didn't seem to be the appropriate thing to say. She felt a flash of panic. Perhaps she was being condescending. Demeaning him. She groped for the right word and then slumped as sudden tension left. She nodded a couple times.

"Totally," she enthused, with all the drawl she had picked up from the Jersey Shore. Parker similarly liquefied, slumping again. Brennan had to wonder when he had sat up quite so straight. She straightened up. She almost smiled as she watched him do the same with an almost audible sigh, as if he were tired.

"Anyway," Parker said, flipping his hand nonchalantly. "These girls. They want us to like _choreograph _a dance routine. To rap music. How stupid right?"

"So random yo," Brennan echoed. Parker frowned at her and shook his head twice as fast as she had been shaking hers.

"Don't do that," he told her severely. She blinked. Wrong anthropological subgroup. Her ears burned; she had never been shamed in front of a class before for the wrong answer. She realized she needed to reclassify Parker in another group. She frantically searched for more words.

"So what's wrong with dancing?" she asked casually, hoping none of the words were offensive. He shrugged and she relaxed. It was like talking to Booth. She wondered if Parker was as prudish about sex as his father. She found it best not to test the waters lest his father go ballistic. The idea was highly entertaining until she recollected that Booth was no longer speaking to her. Correction: she was no longer speaking to him. She had to wonder if Parker was slightly more evolved than the both of them.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with it," Parker whined. "I guess…but I don't know how and I'm going to look really dumb."

"You can't actually look dumb," Brennan corrected him. "It's not a physiological trait."

Parker made a face that was half a frown and half a smile. "But I'm going to embarrass myself."

"Because you don't know what you're doing?" she frowned.

"Duh!" Parker enthused. Brennan quickly grabbed a pen and jotted the word down for future use.

"Well why don't you practice?"

"But dancing is for sissies." Sissies was written under _duh_.

"Who told you that?" Parker shrugged and made a sound that she wrote down phonetically as "idunkno." Brennan looked back up at him.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Nobody," Parker mumbled, slouching again. "Everybody. Boys don't dance. That's lame."

"That's lame," Brennan echoed, working in the hunched shoulders Parker was sporting.

"What!" Parker screeched and Brennan had to wonder if she had said something wrong. "I'm _not_ lame. You know what, I'm going to get the guys together and we're going to choreograph our own dance too and we'll be the best group _ever_. Then dancing won't be lame when I'm _awesome_!" He bellowed the last word and sprinted out leaving Brennan half finished penning the word "awesome."

Booth stuck his head in.

"How'd you do that?" he asked in bewilderment. She was equally bemused.

"Do what?" She spoke carefully, both of them hyperaware this was their first real eye-to-eye conversation in weeks.

"Convince him to dance?"

"I did?" she said in astonishment. Booth shook his head with a scowling smile and mimed shooting a gun at her. She assumed this was some gesture of goodwill for he didn't have his usual grim intensity that came when he was actually hunting someone as a sniper. He patted the door twice and left. Brennan frowned after him and then carefully knocked her knuckles twice on her desk as if mimicking the gesture would force it to go into the subgroup. She wrote it down anyway.

It was only then she managed to stride over to the blinds, suddenly aware how short the dress was without tights, and close them. She struggled into worn jeans and an old tank top she kept for late nights at the Jeffersonian when her body hurt. Her body didn't hurt from the inseams and the high heels _now_, but her mind hurt. Her…her heart didn't hurt but something metaphorically like a heart hurt. Was that what a soul was? She squinched up one eye as she folded her dress. If only she could ask Booth.

She sighed heavily as she eyed the letter on her desk. It hadn't really ever left her mind; she was too good at multitasking for that. So before she picked it up, her brain had already informed her that it was from a friend since it didn't have postage, from someone in the lab since it was in a Jeffersonian envelope, and it had to be a woman since the handwriting was so well penned. That left two obvious candidates. Turning the envelope over and opening it let out a certain scent she'd never in a hundred years forget – regardless how improbable she would ever live another hundred years – the scent of Angela's perfume. She wore the same perfume every day since Hodgins had bought it for her before the gravedigger had taken him.

Regardless of how long she had left to live, Brennan would know that smell for the rest of her life.

She swallowed. She wasn't sure if Angela's letter would be the best one to read first. She couldn't even remember what she had written to Angela. It probably had been cruel.

It wasn't a piece of paper. It was cardstock. It had one line on it.

_Come see me. _

Brennan wasn't sure if that meant now, or at the end of the day, or at the end of the week or…what it meant at all. She would pop in and see Angela, ask her, and then come back during the appropriate time. She sighed and got up, walking out and forgetting her bare feet despite her strict mandate that close toed shoes be worn at all times in the lab. She realized it was later than she had thought; then again, Parker did have to come home from school before meeting up with Booth. The lab was full of mostly hangers-on. People like Zack and Hodgins who raced beetles. Very simply, people with no place else to go. Brennan didn't like that she was one of those people.

She used to always have a place to go.

But lately she had been avoiding the diner and Founding Fathers like the plague. She wouldn't want to run into certain people who had invaded her privacy, read her diary and had the gall to stand there, half naked, and try to explain.

She half knocked on the doorframe, the two knocks Booth had just inadvertently taught her. Angela looked up from her computer; her eyebrows went way up. Brennan had to assume it was her attire, since nothing else was out of the ordinary.

"Well to what do I owe this pleasure?" Angela simpered. Brennan frowned a laugh. She would never understand her best friend. She half held up the letter with an apologetic smile, opening her mouth to explain. Angela's delight drained from her face like a colander; certain parts of her face still clung to her previous smile. It stayed in place, but the other parts of her face changed. Brennan wasn't any good at the minutiae that Booth's 'gut' picked up, but she would have almost said the smile was now…sad.

Really sad.

"Sweetie," Angela said, coming over to grab one of her arms and the back of another shoulder. She squeezed slightly as her eyes blinked over bright.

"I have something to tell you."


	2. How Much Can I Go Through?

**Okay, so I kept getting all these emails for "favorite story alert" and all I can think is - guys, I haven't even written it yet! How can you know it'll be your favorite? Otherwise, I was very flattered by all the reviews and alerts. Like The Letterbox the chapter titles belong to a Superchick song, this one incredibly heart breaking and entitled "Crawl." **

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><p>"Ange?" Brennan asked in confusion, but Angela shook her head quickly, a fanbelt sound emanating from her throat.<p>

"Just wait," she mumbled. Her fingers were trembling with the remote; Brennan could see them shaking. Angela clicked on the transparent screen. It was obscured by another picture of her. The Angela on the screen was wearing a sunny coral tank top, her usual conglomeration of chunky necklaces, and a jean jacket that looked out of style but had obviously been embroidered back into fashion. Brennan looked over at her best friend quizzically.

Angela gestured for her to watch. Brennan sank into a chair Angela had quickly dragged out from behind her desk. The screen was twice the length of her body. Big Angela was imposing. Brennan scratched her arms futilely and swallowed before nodding, a horrible sinking suspicion bringing about a disturbing round of déjà vu with her mother's video diary from Tempe's sixteenth birthday. She didn't like to think of herself as Temperance anymore. It would take training to think of herself as anything but Bones.

The universal white triangle appeared in the top corner of the screen. The video began playing. Brennan knew before Angela began speaking what this was.

"Hi sweetie. That letter was a doozy. Whew." On screen Angela fanned herself. Real time Angela slumped back into the cornered shadow of her office against the windows. Brennan compressed her lips together, ungrateful for the reminder. TV Angela's face shifted somehow; Booth would have known. She swallowed down the unhappy guilt. _Guilt?_ Why was _she_ feeling guilty? How could that be possible? She hadn't done anything wrong. She bit the inside of her lip, feeling it swell between her teeth. She tugged on the belt loops of her jeans. The Angela on the screen leaned forward.

"At first I was angry," her eyebrows furrowed as she nodded, more to herself than her audience of Brennan, "I was really upset. But then I read it again. And again. You asked me what I want from you and this is it:" Angela pushed her face too close to the camera. "I don't want anything _from_ you, I just want _you._ Sweetheart, I know you think you're unlovable-" Brennan felt her eyes sting, tears punishing her cornea and trying to escape. She barked her heels against the ground as she leaned back in surprise.

"You can be cold. And you can be selfish, uncompromising, disbelieving to the point of rudeness-" Brennan scoffed in outrage, the only little breath she could garner as Angela detailed her worst faults. She knew. Brennan felt that her heart was pushing rudely at her ribcage, hurting her, carving a crevasse of cold where there had so long been her best friend. Angela continued, regardless of her outrage, though Brennan could see out of the corner of one eye the dark glint of _something_ flicker in the shadowy corner that was Angela's face.

"But you can also be surprisingly compassionate, sweet, brilliant, unintentionally funny-" Brennan laughed in surprise, a sharp slap of a sound that echoed in the too still lab, in the too tense room.

"-but also heartfelt even if you don't know what to do. I may not always agree with you – and we both know how often I don't-"

Brennan gave another watery laugh.

"-but I will always love you. I'm an only child – like you were for most of your life. I've never had a sister, so maybe I mess up a lot. I don't know what I'm doing." Brennan's quick glance over revealed Angela sitting, just as enraptured by her own diary in a corner.

"So, when you wrote that letter, even though we had been friends for a little over two years, I was a different person, like I know you were. We were younger. I didn't know about your family. I didn't know what Christmas meant to you or I wouldn't have pushed so hard. I wish I had known what I know now. I wish I had stayed up all night with you, looking for Ivy Gellisby.

"But though we were friends we were not yet sisters. I took this job because I needed the money – but I stayed for you. Somehow the weeks saving to go back to Paris became months, and still I stayed even though my job hurt me." Angela put a hand over her heart as she winced into the lens. "I thought the job was killing me." She nodded seriously, her hand falling as if forgotten to her lap. She looked forlorn, as if realizing she had lost something. She brightened, her hand fisting in sudden resolution.

"I thought it so much so that I almost quit. But, um-" here Angela tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But it wasn't killing me. It was changing me. And change _hurt_. It hurt a lot. And I know that you know that." Brennan felt her face crumple with an emotion that felt like a wail but didn't have another name. She frowned deeply until it gave her a headache, compulsively running her fingers over her jeans, her hands desperate for something to do, shaking her head in despair and denial. Angela suddenly became stern.

"Don't you shake your head at me!" Brennan stopped and laughed. Her laughter was strange. She kept laughing in all the wrong places. She should have laughed hysterically at Angela's assurance of her love. Instead all Brennan could feel was incredibly touched. Her throat was congested with teakettle tears, seeking any way out of her system. She kept the lid on her emotions.

In the corner real Angela cracked a smile and pointed a perfectly manicured French tip.

"I told you so," she interjected quickly into the silence before the Angela on the screen finished drawing a huge breath, obviously discomfited in her vein. They never had such serious conversations, and never so one sided. Brennan had to wonder when the last time was that she really sat and _listened_ to her friend instead of shaking her head and quickly filling her in about a case with Booth. The video continued, steamrolling Brennan's guilt in the face of even more truth, adding steam to a place below her throat, causing more pressure to stop it up.

"But one of the major reasons I believe I changed is because of two people: you and Hodgins. You two are the most important people in my life. I was changed to be made…_better_." Angela leaned forward emphatically, underscoring her point with her desperate sincerity knotting her eyebrows into an upside down pleading frown.

"Hodgins made me _more_ – a better person. He made me more accountable, more responsible and more grounded. But _you_," Angela stopped to subconsciously lick her lips as she smiled, eyes flitting up to the right as she thought. Brennan remembered Booth had taught her that was a sign that people were telling the truth. His name was an ugly clog to cork her emotional bottleneck to the point where she needed to open her mouth to breathe.

"You made me more loving, more patient, more reserved, quieter. I know," Angela gave a self conscious titter, "I'm not really any of those things, but to be your friend I knew I had to meet you three quarters of the way. I always thought that it was you who was unyielding to change. I'm an artist after all-" she tossed her hair in pride, "-but it turns out you have grown more than I have in the past six years than I could have ever imagined. I had to grow to meet you in the middle. It was hard." Angela leaned forward to accentuate her veracity.

"Very hard. Harder than I thought it would be to change. What with the celibacy kick, my toying around with Roxy and Wendell and all the countless others before Hodgins, my careless marriage to Grayson, God knows Brennan you've seen me at my worst. Like when Kirk died in the desert. But you've also seen me at my best which was hands down my marriage to Hodgins and our son, and everything in between. You want to be my friend because you think you're unlovable, but sweetheart I love you." Angela shook her head no a dozen times in half smiled sincerity while Brennan's first high whistle alerted her friend in the corner that her emotions had finally bubbled to the surface as Brennan felt some tears spill scaldingly over. The video diary wasn't over.

"I do," Angela on screen assured her again, her fingers clenching and then splaying on her own arms as if hugging herself could comfort Brennan in the real world. Yet Angela didn't move to comfort her quite yet. Brennan gritted her teeth shut to try to snuffle in dignity against her tears that were so much more than Angela's letter but also because of the heart wrenching catalyst.

"That's what I want from you. I want you to stay. Don't leave because of what Booth did." Brennan sucked in a sharp, painful breath and out of the corner of her eye Angela looked contrite. She kept still with hand wringing effort. Brennan curled her bare toes into the carpet and arched her back with the reminder.

"What he did to you was awful, but also done out of love. Trust me sweetie, when I tell you he did it out of love. He loves you Brennan, even if you don't want to hear it. Even if you close your eyes and wish it away." Brennan forcefully popped her eyes open to stare resentfully at the screen. Angela should not meddle.

"You know it, somewhere deep down – or maybe not so deep down. He told you and you listened. You can see it happening, day by day. Nobody's been brave enough to say it – at least not to you –" Brennan sucked in another anguished breath. They had talked to Booth previous to this? The inequality made her feel belittled, condescended to. A child. She hadn't been a child in so very long.

Anger gnashed its porcelain teeth, so delicate in the face of truth, and Brennan made to stand. Both Angelas, in eerie synchronization shouted:

"Wait!"

She froze, half turned from the glow, as Angela on the screen drew a breath of shock, as if actually able to see Brennan slinking away.

"You can't leave every time you don't want to hear something." Brennan whirled, eyes like ovens.

"I'm sorry," both the Angelas apologized again. Brennan rubbed her hair. She realized she needed to wash it.

"I," she cleared her throat. TV Angela did the same.

"Um," she said and Brennan unwillingly turned her body back out of respect to her friend and out of blatant curiosity to watch the rest. Angela sighed on screen, her fingers probing her forehead as if she could find the courage there. "I have to tell you something." The words rang oddly truth and Brennan realized Angela had said the same thing when she had first walked in with the letter that had been laid carelessly on her friends' desk when the video had started. She also discovered that her tank top was not enough to cover her goosebumps. She gritted her teeth.

She wasn't cold.

"I told Booth about your parents long before you did." Brennan's heart stopped - metaphorically speaking at least. She felt it contract extra hard as the wind was ripped from her chest. Angela's eyes were filled with huge, visible tears that threatened to drown Brennan as she stood, arms defensively crossed, below her.

"I told him more than once. I was watching out for you but I didn't always keep your secrets. I was watching out for you in another way. Booth may have read the letters, but I told him long before. I defended you, fought for you, but I betrayed you." Brennan shook her head, mumbling incoherent no's and mewls of protest, throat too full to actually vocalize her denial. It wasn't happening. She couldn't have.

"I did," tv Angela said earnestly. "I did it. I told him. Every time you were upset, I would talk to him. I would warn him. I would help him. What I want from you is trust, your past and mostly so I can be a better friend." She stopped for a moment to purse her lips. She shrugged. "I've been meddling. You know I always meddle, and yet did you really think I wouldn't meddle in your life?"

Where Brennan stood, silence thundered. She couldn't look at Angela. She had believed it, actually. A naive belief, she realized. People didn't really change.

"Did you ever consider maybe Booth wanted the same thing? To know you like I wanted to?"

Brennan managed to make a strangled, murderous noise in her throat but her limbs were too leaden to jerk out of her tightly frozen position and storm away impressively as she wanted.

"I love you sweetie," Angela said in her softest laugh, as if already knowing the turmoil in which Brennan writhed, too ashamed to open her mouth in fear of letting out her sobs. "I will always love you, but I don't always understand you.

"I just wanted you to know."

The screen went black. A white arrow over a bar appeared. There was a whirring sound as a disc was ejected. The room was very dark and very quiet except for the soft scraping of Angela's shoes as she held the disc, tucked into a little square envelope, out in mute apology.

"I," Brennan cleared her throat. Genocide had occurred inside the strangled pipe of the teakettle. Her voice wasn't working. Her lungs weren't working. She tried again. "I-"

"Oh sweetie," Angela said in sudden compassion. She knew, without speaking, what to do and moved forward to hug her. Brennan bitterly wept for that as much as anything else. The crying was ugly. It had the snuffled enraged snorts from the puffing steam stemmed up inside of her. Angela held her.

"I'm sorry," Angela whispered into her hair, stroking it as Brennan struggled to force her other crueler sounds back in. She wasn't angry; not yet. Only broken and ashamed. Scared. For the first time in a long time she wanted her mother. She wanted someone without an agenda. Everything she had trusted about Booth and Angela, her two closest friends, was a lie. She wept more for that than for any of the touching things Angela had mentioned in her letter.

She gritted her jaw and drew away. Angela's face was all curves. Her mouth drooped unhappily, her eyebrows pulled toward the call of gravity; her pupils were drawn towards the ground. Brennan wished she had the energy for _hate_ but in reality her numbness was still a nice heavy cloak, keeping her safe from herself.

"I'm going home," Brennan managed to say with her usual haughty composure. She knew her cold tone sounded ridiculous with her stuffy nose.

"Do you want me to walk you out to your car?"

"No," she said, much too quickly. Angela's downward curved face was smashed with the verbal sledgehammer. Brennan snatched the disc quickly and turned away from the destruction she had wrought. _She_ had wrought? Brennan seethed as she stepped quickly down the hall, away from Angela. Why did she continue to feel guilty? Why, as the victim, did she feel more isolated than Booth, who still had his son? Who had Cam? Who had a _family?_

_Why am I always alone?_ She wondered. Angela was wrong. She was unlovable.

She felt overfull of self-loathing and it corroded the insides of her, as if her iron levels had become toxic and were eating away at the tiny capillaries. She wondered if she was missing the psychological anthropology of her friend group. She scrunched up her face in irritation. As if she would like to hear what Sweets had to say.

She realized she was tossing her desk, searching for her keys. She glanced at the letterbox and viciously rejected it. _How_ had Booth wanted to read all the letters? She could barely stomach one. She gulped and found her keys. Irritatingly enough, they was next to the offending, lying, deceptively cheerful box. Almost throwing herself about in a tantrum, she snatched up a letter as well, just to have to torture herself with later. Angela was waiting outside her door as she threw her keys and purse over her shoulder. She locked her office and strode off without eye contact. She knew she was being horrible, a child in the face of emotion, but she didn't care. Anger was slowly bubbling, just as genuine anger, according to anthropology, was wont to do. Knowing that it was genuine didn't make her any happier.

"Are you going to be okay?" Brennan noticed Angela had bitten her tongue to cut off her usual endearment of 'sweetie.' That infuriated her more. She wished her anger would heat enough so her close-to-the-surface tears would boil away.

"I'm fine," she shot and whisked out of the lab.

"That went well," Angela sighed drolly, her head lolling to stare at Booth in the doorway.


	3. My Heart, My Soul Aches

**For those of you who like going back and rereading letters, one is in chapter 7, the other in chapter 3.**

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><p>She couldn't stop herself from going to the practice range to vent off some steam. She was afraid of running into <em>him<em> there but then consoled herself that he was with Parker.

It was dinner time and therefore the last open hours of the practice range. She felt the letter she had snatched burning in her bag. She viciously but with a fierce smile, more savage than joyous, shot a few rounds. However, her marksmanship was so poor that her distraction finally drove her to collapse, panting, into a pile.

She begrudgingly pulled her ecosensible bag - ugly in its army green glory - towards her as she sat, chest heaving with ire and the adrenaline still pushing cruelly and relentlessly through her veins.

The envelope was crumpled by her impatient shove as she had packed thoughtlessly. She pulled her knees up to her chest, propping herself between the stall walls of the shooting range, her last soundproof vestige from the world. She smoothed the letter hard on the top of one of her quadriceps.

She felt her heart free fall at the title.

_Letter to a Daughter._

It was from Max then. She steeled herself but still swallowed hard. She was an adult, she could handle a silly sentimental answer to a long ago letter. She opened it.

_Dear Temperance,_

Even the salutation and her name were all wrong. She glanced at the date. It was written only a week ago. She wondered if her father was holding his breath, waiting for her to read it. She scoffed, chastising herself for her outrageous and unfounded musings. No one could hold his breath for a week.

_Although Booth says I'm only supposed to answer my letter, he also gave me the letter to your mother. Tempe, you broke my heart with her letter – written when you were only 15 years old. The translation and change in your voice, your personality, all those years in between that I missed became apparent in your letter to me. I was glad you told me what you were doing; we never talk about those years in person._

Brennan could hardly remember what she had written to Max. She had completely forgotten she had written to her mother. Fifteen? She had started her letterbox so young as fifteen? She ground her teeth at the innocently penned "Booth says." Booth had quite a lot to say, evidently. She sniffed, feeling her mouth twitch with quick contempt and stared back at the page.

_And though I respect Booth, and especially you honey, I also feel that it is so very unfair to both you and your mother that you don't get an answer from her letter. So I wrote this letter from both of us. Mostly from me, because I'm still around, but I tried to answer all the questions you asked your mother that you haven't yet answered for yourself._

Brennan thunked her suddenly leaden head against the sound proof perforated steel. The adrenaline from Angela's video letter, the discovery of Booth's further transgressions by actually mailing out her diary, and her terrible run with target practice had exhausted every mental barrier she possessed. Her arms felt too heavy to hold up the letter. She dropped them by her sides in defeat, letting the letter fan itself like a squirming infant in her lap. She finally managed to drag one hand to weight the paper down in order to read.

_Of course it started with changing our names – your names – and moving. But then there was a long time when your mother and I thought we were safe, that we got away clean. We really thought we could make it, to start new and have a family. To be a family._

_ But then, the summer right before you were 15, there was a summer carnival. Do you remember that?_

She did not.

_You came home with one of those henna temporary tattoos that last a week or so. _

_Oh_, Brennan realized, a smile lurking beneath the paralyzed surface of her face. Yes, she remembered now. Her mother had been furious.

_Your mother was so angry. At first I tried to reason with her. "Christine," I told her, "it comes off. Let her have some fun," I said. Then your mother showed me your back. You had this flowery disc on your shoulder blade. At first I didn't see it._

Brennan felt her skin growing cold in the wake of a startling burst of air conditioning. This was a newly discovered happy memory – a normal life with normal problems like a mother who hated tattoos. She hadn't realized at the time, or for 15 years after, that her mother didn't like easy identification.

_But then I realized the dots in the disc were code, and the disc was a coin. You know now that my calling card was a Columbus Coin, and the rest of the people from that life – an age ago, it seems to us old men – used similar coins. Your mother and I were being sent a message through the skin of our 14 year old daughter. It simply said "we are watching you."_

Brennan felt sick on top of her chill. The signs of her parents leaving were there long before they were gone. Why hadn't she _seen_ them?

_We took more precautions. We made Russ drive you to school instead of you riding the bus. _

Brennan remembered that too. Russ had hated that. She had been glad the ordeal of the bus was no longer her problem to face. She was dizzy with all the signs.

_We figured that as long as you were together or in crowds they would leave you alone. Then Russ' car was keyed in the parking lot. I was furious, mostly because it was another threat against my children._

Max had yelled at Russ for his irresponsibility for hours. She had felt smug, sneaking cookie dough in the kitchen with her mother as they giggled about boys. It was only now Brennan realized her mother had been distracting her, keeping her safe. All her laughter had been false.

Brennan dropped her knees to flatten the letter on the floor, nauseated and freezing. Max was murdering all of her happy memories. They were all a sham. A time she had often reminisced upon as a golden age was actually a gilt veneer over seething lies. She folded her arms up under her armpits as she continued reading.

_That was when your mother and I had decided it was time to leave. _

Brennan looked up, gasping for air as if surfacing from being underwater too long. It crossed her mind that she could protect herself. She could stop reading. She could refuse. Deep down, she knew she could never stop reading. Hidden under that realization was the barest spark of another. She understood, finally, the draw Booth had faced. It seemed impossible to stop.

_I wanted to keep the family together. I told Christine how terrible the foster system was. She argued that Russ was of age. He adored you. He would watch out for you._

_But he didn't_, Brennan bitterly remembered.

_That he didn't still shocks me, but I guess although your mother and I planned for every possibility it never occurred to us how different it would make you two. We knew it could change you, but please believe me Tempe, we never meant to break you. You were right when you said we were the family nothing bad could happen to. Your mother and I made it that way, carefully created this world for you. You said you cannot hate me, but I hate myself. If I had known what I do now, and especially after reading your letter to your mother about feeling like we killed you, well I would have never let your mother convince me that you two would be better off alone than running away with us._

_She urged met to think how tough it would be on you especially, Temperance, a teenage girl, a new school every month, a target every minute, so much more tantalizing, easier, than Russ. She wanted you to have a normal life. To go to prom._

_I didn't,_ Brennan seethed, her sickness at heart curdling into the slowly stoked embers of anger.

_She said you wouldn't have any benefit from our lifestyle._

_I would have had you,_ Brennan cried to herself.

_We wanted to protect you._

"You didn't," Brennan whispered, her rage driving her to speak. Max echoed her uncannily.

_But we didn't, did we? On my 50__th__ birthday, I sat alone in a bar and drank. Your mother had died less than a year before. It was one of the lowest moments of my life. If I had known where you were, how unhappy…I may have sent you a postcard, or a sign, or an anonymous note…But it wasn't safe. Not with McVicar still out there hunting for me. He tried to kill your mother and then succeeded by accident when the bruise on her head became a slow bleeding aneurysm in her brain._

Brennan felt sick again, her anger boiling into hatred and sharp, brittle grief.

_I didn't want you to wake up, strapped to a table, only to see the world to go dark. You were on such a good path. So bright. So happy. You were doing everything your mother and I had ever hoped for. A good school, a good career. When I saw you again, for the first time after all those years with my new face at the church, I finally felt like your mother and I had made the right decision._

Brennan curled in on herself, her stiffly locked fingers digging into the spaces between her ribs. Maybe she was holding herself together; maybe she was trying to rip herself apart. All she could think about that night when he left with Russ in the car was that she couldn't remember his voice. She would have given anything to remember his voice, those long nights in stranger's homes, and when she finally heard him speak again, he was a stranger. She couldn't remember what him saying "I love you" sounded like.

_I thought we had done right by you. Until now._

_Until I got those letters. I hate myself for doubting. I _knew_ you. We were so close. I _knew_ leaving you behind was a mistake. It got even worse when your brother walked away. I never thought that would happen. I never thought we would break you. Your heart? Yes. But your soul? My God Temperance, you're a beautiful young woman and I'm proud to call you my daughter but you're right. I don't know you. Snickerdoodles are all we had left of those days. _

_That Christmas, agony for you, was twice as terrible for your mother and I. The car, with the blood, we had left it on purpose. I didn't think they'd find it so quickly. I didn't realize, I suppose, how horrible Christmas must have been for you. Your mother spent it crying, hanging by the phone. She wished, I think. She wished a lot. I didn't speak. There were no presents. We kept running Christmas day. Even other criminals don't like working Christmas day. They've got families too, you know. We didn't. Not anymore. Honey, no matter what you put beneath the Christmas tree, we would have loved it. I never needed to see awards to know how exceptional you were. I never needed gifts to know you two loved us. But you couldn't love us as much as we loved you._

Brennan raised shaking fingers to her mouth and surprised herself by finding it gaping open. She pushed her chin up with a numb palm.

_It's my fault it all happened this way. I doubted myself. I believed your mother mostly because I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe you'd be happy because I _knew_ how hard our life would be on the run. The constant threat. Distrust. I didn't want that to be your life._

_ But you distrust anyway. There was no way to win. I wanted to believe, to beat the odds, but deep down I didn't. And that's why I stayed when Booth arrested me. I stayed for you because I was wrong Tempe. I was wrong to leave, and I'm sorry._

_ I'm so sorry._

_ Love, always love,_

_ Mom and Dad_

Brennan realized she was silently crying both because she was disgusted her father was begging and because she remembered everything she had gone through, all she had achieved for the sake and sacred memory of her parents. And it was a sham. The letter sullied it. It took her memories off their pedestal and made them profane, unloved, and imperfect.

She hated him. Her father.

She hated herself.

She hated Russ and the foster care system.

But mostly she hated Booth. She knew, intellectually, she was picking the least offensive and most accessible target for her rage, but she didn't care. She staggered up, leaving the letter on the ground to be trodden beneath her clunky shoes and the dragging hem of her long unused jeans.

The brisk sound of gunshots were both wonderful and horrible. There was a power, a heady rush of glory but also the flinching sound of flesh breaking like the paper target, her mother running, slipping at the last minute to avoid the death given to swine. Brennan tried to smother all thought by pulling the trigger harder, harder even though she knew on a physical level there was, like a neuron synapses, only one point of firing. It didn't matter how hard she squeezed, so long as she squeezed past the point of no return.

No return.

She felt like choking; she was choking. She realized it was her swollen throat, closed from unshed tears of unlived lives. She _hated_ Booth. He had done this. He had brought out the secrets like ants from the woodwork, swarming over her itching skin, biting, biting, biting all the sensitive flesh.

She glanced down and realized she was sweating heavily. So heavily that the trickling drops of sweat, down the front of her shins, in the creases of her elbows, snaking down her spine explained the ridiculous feeling of all the little ant feet.

She opened her mouth to pant in more air. She felt her face screw up, it hurt how hard it folded its skin against itself. Her lips were peeling back, any farther and they would recede into the flesh under her cheekbones. She realized she was wearing the anthropological grimace of pain. Her gun, held so steadily for minutes, the empty cartridges littering her feet, smoking near the paper, all went blurry. She grunted a soft cry and forced her hands even farther forward, jamming her elbows locked in an effort to keep it from shaking.

"No," she coughed a sad little sob trying harder than ever to keep the barrel straight. "No – No- I—" she accentuated every little sound, words instead of the sobs she so desperately tried to hide, with a shake of her arms trying to shake out the tremors. Her gun went off. Again. Again. It was hitting other targets. It wasn't even close to straight. Sideways. She gasped, grunted and pulled the trigger again, and again. Something was wrong with the gun. It wasn't making sounds. It was silent. _Please don't be silent_, she thought hard at it. She squeezed harder, the metallic bite of blood in her mouth creating a sense of urgency when she knew, rationally speaking, she was nineteen years too late.

"It's empty, Temperance," someone said softly. She whirled, still sobbing, to point the gun at the intruder. It wasn't an intruder though; she knew who it was. Of course. Of _course_ he would come at her lowest moment. She laughed a tiny, burbling, hysterical laugh. Of course.

He had called her Temperance. She frowned at him, the end of her pistol weaving so badly in her vision she closed her eyes. _You asked him not to call you Bones_, her mind reminded her.

"What?" she coughed pathetically. He reached one, slow hand towards her gun. She yanked it back like he was another kid reaching for her toy. She realized it was empty. She glanced down at it dully as it hung limply from her hand.

"We need to talk," Booth said, glancing quickly down at the crumpled letter under her shoes.

"Maybe later," she muttered. He swallowed.

"Now would be good. We haven't seen each other in weeks."

"I said _later!"_ she screamed suddenly. Her hate broiled abruptly over her skin. The horrible beads of sweat intensified. She dropped the gun thoughtlessly and rounded on him, hands clenched into fists. She was feeling. Feeling a damn lot at the moment. She was…_raw_ her mind supplied. She was raw. Couldn't he see?

"That's it," he coaxed. She was flummoxed by his tone. He backed her to the side of the shooting range stall, up against the cold steel suddenly stealing her sweat away. She realized this was one of the first places they had ever fought. She wondered if this was it: the last place they ever fought. If this was the end of their friendship. Partnership – everything..ship. How poetic it was here in this stall.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped as he bent his fingers as if to place them on her arms. She shoved him, hard, trying to get away. His fingers closed.

"That's it. Hurt me back. You know you want to."

"No! I don't!" But she realized with a rush of hot hatred, she did. He had taken what was most sacred to her and given it to the world. He had patiently waited for her to trust him – waited years – to rip it apart and smile smugly at her. He had been cheeky, cocky, and arrogant. He had taken her life and looked at it like an interesting set of remains, stinking in the sun and tried to solve it. He had the audacity to try to put the bones back where they went. Didn't he know, only she knew about bones?

She shoved him. He let her. She pounded a fist weakly against one arm, but stronger now as reason and hate surged potency in her fragile fingers. She kicked him, hard, in the groin. His face went white, but he didn't say a word as he staggered, and she kicked his knees out from under him. He went down. A crash. He was on his back. She straddled him, victorious, breath coming hot and fast with the conquering. She had waited for this, she had needed this. She raised her fist to hit, to hurt, to crush without mercy. As he had done.

He turned his jaw a little, softening it as his eyes tightened and he concentrated somewhere over her shoulder. He didn't resist. He didn't make noise. She realized suddenly with frozen tension, he was good at this. Practiced. His resigned face but steady resolve not to cry out was from years ago. She started to shake, her arm still frozen comically above her. She couldn't hit him. Not a little boy who had been thrashed so many times he took it without question. He was letting her beat him, as he had let his father beat him. She couldn't see him anymore. She couldn't see anything, only grey blurs as scalding tears, lava erupting from the cornea broke her sight.

"Fight me!" she screamed. She tried to scream. It came out a whisper, a guttural ugly sound. "Fight back! Damn it, fight back!" He continued to look at the spot over her shoulder. He let his big hands clench and unclench. She could feel the muscles of his shoulders rippling beneath her. He cranked his jaw up enough just to say:

"No."

She dropped her arm in despair, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.

"Fight back! Fight back! How can I hit you if you don't fight back?"

She stood shakily and hauled his shirt with her. He came easily into a sitting position, his dark eyes wise with things she did not understand, could not understand. She hated him for that. Why was he so wise after all of his struggles? She only felt tired. She only felt used. She never felt wise. Why did he triumph? Was she so broken as that?

She dropped to her knees, pushing at his shoulders, slapping his collarbone half heartedly, crying unrestrainedly.

"I can't," she finally sobbed, wrenching her eyes from his understanding, patient face, upturned to her for a beating he thought he deserved.

He did deserve it.

But even as she told herself, she knew she didn't believe it. He had done the unforgivable, but…she still loved him. Hated him.

"I can't," she sobbed again, withering into herself, folding up against her hips, digging her own hands into her own skin, settling to bruise herself if she couldn't bruise him. She couldn't love him. She couldn't hate him. She couldn't hit him. She couldn't touch him.

But he could touch her.

His face changed in the corners of her vision. He frowned, concerned, scared even. He pulled at her clawed fingers, he pried open her viselike arms. He inserted himself in the space that wasn't meant for him, but she wished she had left it.

"It's okay, I've got you. I've got you," he murmured as her fingers dug into his skin, finally injuring as he was healing. She was out of control. Why couldn't she put it back? Why couldn't she snap the lid shut, as so many times before? Booth had dug too deeply this time. He had gone past the light into the dark. She hadn't wanted him to ever go here. She hadn't wanted to ever go here herself.

"I hate you," she sobbed. She felt her mouth, still grimacing in that gasp of pain, hit him over and over with her teeth, her hard chin. She consoled herself she was hitting him. He deserved it.

He held her regardless, tighter.

"I know," he sighed, his sigh a rumble. "I know."

"I _hate_ you," she repeated, her tears unstoppable, a flood, a force, a levy snapping tiny twig like trees.

"I know."

"I want to fight back," she assured him. She clenched every muscle she had more tightly. She would crush him. She would be the anaconda. She would smother him and splinter him. He was rock steady. He didn't waver from her touch, from her trembling, from her spasmodic strangling.

"I know," he said, his voice too sweet for someone who should be dying from her poison.

"I can't hurt you," she finally realized in a broken whisper. "I want to. You hurt…you hurt…" she touched his back with suddenly whispery fingers. He hurt. He hurt her. But he hurt everyday. He was hurt. She ached.

"I know." Her sobbing had depleted her. Her muscles were not strong enough to crush him, a solid rock in a storm. She felt herself unwind, go limp. He did not let go. He held her up.

"I hate you," she sighed, weeping out the last few hot tears. His hand finally left her back, the bar of iron removed and she sagged as it came up to cradle her head as gently as an infant. He whispered in her ear and finally let himself lean up against the soundproof wall.

"I love you too."


	4. I Don't Know What To Do

**The original letter is in chapter 15 and this one got crazy long which is why I kept trying to post it and it kept coming. Hope that's okay ;)**

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><p>"Are you okay? Booth asked some time later when she had finally calmed enough. She had been silent several minutes, dull and spent, not embarrassed but rather uncaring. Now he could leave her in peace. He knew how she felt. She could go home and lie under the covers fully clothed. She recognized the signs of an aching, sleepless night, long before it was dark outside.<p>

She didn't answer him. She knew he had heard something by the way his body had tensed under hers, but she still lay slumped, defeated by his unassailable personality; she didn't spare him an ounce of her weight. It irked her that he didn't seem to mind. He was only looking out for her self image.

Even she could hear the clomping of shoes on the stairs.

"Sorry ma'am, but- oh- I- uh- look sir, this is not the place to be –"

Booth raised a hand from underneath her prone form. She knew what the proprietor thought.

"Hey, look, she hit her head. Just making sure my partner is okay."

As if on cue, Booth rumbling the word 'partner' made her feel like heaving. She sniffled loudly to cover it. Booth patted her back in a forced way that was nothing like what had just occurred between them.

"Oh." The man's voice had changed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought-"

"We know what you thought," Booth interrupted.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Booth answered in a patient, strained way. Brennan didn't move, feeling the tension from the question the man didn't perceive.

"She'll be fine." Brennan didn't move.

"Okay but I'm closing up," the man said in a dubious voice.

"We'll get out of your hair," Booth assured him. The man's shoes disappeared from her sight as he clumped back upstairs. She pushed away from Booth glacially. He helped her sit up by setting her upright by her forearms. She shrugged him away and staggered instead to her feet.

"You okay?" he asked again. She wished he'd stop asking. She stumbled from her numb feet. She found she couldn't quite look at him. She picked up her bag but hesitated before touching it, her hand frozen over the letter.

He saved her the agony. He crouched and picked it up gently before folding it and handing it to her. She felt tears prick urgently but she ignored them and instead sighed gustily as she carefully tucked it and its envelope in her bag.

Booth was already quickly and efficiently gathering up the empty cartridges and the discarded pistol. Brennan's mind flashed to hunter-gatherers and felt somehow silly that the roles were anthropologically reversed according to sex. She berated herself for being stupid and plagued by sexist thinking. The shells clinked gently as she closed her eyes as she shouldered her bag.

"Let's go," he said quietly and she jolted forward the electric feel of his hand against the small of her back, foreign after missing for so long. He didn't mutter 'sorry' but she could feel his desperate stare burning into her scapulae as she climbed the stairs. She started for her car but his hand caught her shoulder. She flinched but her bare skin of her tank top caught on air. He had remembered her reprimand and let her go when he had her attention.

"Hey, where are you going?" She hadn't known before she answered him but she blurted it out regardless.

"I need a drink."

"Let me drive you," he offered immediately.

"I can handle it."

"You don't drink."

"I do!"

"Wine, but I don't think that's what you had in mind." She closed her mouth on the retort and fumbled in her bag for her car keys. He was right. Damn him. Damn him _always_. She remembered all of those weeks when she felt sick with worry, watching her partner suffer day by day. She had thought his gambling had come back, or his PTSD. She had thought the worst. Reality had far surpassed it. She felt the old burning anger flaring up but it had nothing to feed on, no kindling. The spark died. She concentrated on rifling through her bag without touching the letter. A difficult task.

She made an angry sound as she walked into her car, bumping it gently with her hip. She leaned against it and went through her bag again. And a third time.

"What's wrong?" Booth asked with such _Boothy_ worry that she felt like slithering down to the ground and crying all over again. She shivered instead, steeling herself. Looking at him was so incredibly painful it made her eyes smart, tear up, sting. She realized she had a lot of crying left in her, a lot of tragedy. She didn't like the thought.

"I can't find my keys," she spat through gritted teeth. She was clenching her jaw against the crying. He knew though. He knew. He smiled cheekily but with such sadness on her face she had to look away. He pointed in her window.

"Those keys?"

"Damn it," she swore. He shoved his hands in his pockets as if to shove down his response. He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

"Yes, fine," she scowled at the gravel. "You can drive me home." She changed her diction to seem more aggressive. "Drive me home. No, first to the liquor store. Then home. And then _you_ go home. I don't want to –" she flapped her hand to somehow finish the sentence with words she couldn't say as she hauled herself up into his front seat as she had done hundreds of times previous. It felt exciting and strange to be repeating something so familiar as if she were pulling on a coat of Booth's world snug around her shoulders.

The car was filthier than she would have allowed. Wrappers crinkled under her clunky shoes. The leather scalded her skin, made her sweat in the late August sun.

"I need to clean it," he allowed. She bit her tongue and looked out the window. He turned on the radio to fill the unaccustomed silence.

"You want to call a tow?"

"I'll call."

"Now? Before they close?"

"Tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to have to deal with customer service when I'm drunk. Okay?" she snapped waspishly. His eyebrows went up, genuine surprise widening his eyes just like on the emotion cards Brennan had been studying, trying to place context on such a vague concept as 'emotions.'

"Okay," he said noncommittally.

"Don't start with me," she seethed.

"I didn't!" His fingers flew off the wheel like a fan. He clenched them shut.

"I'm an adult Booth. I can buy alcohol."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You didn't have to. I know your past with-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, when did this get to be about _me?_"

"Well it's been about me long enough don't you think?" Brennan realized she was shouting. Booth's face cleared, his anger dropped.

"That's what you think? That I've seen too much and so I should leave? Run away like everybody else?"

"No. Don't be ridiculous." She clenched her hands shut, mimicking him unconsciously as she strangled the strap of her bag.

"I'm not being ridiculous."

"I hate psychology."

"It's common sense."

"Your gut?"

"Look," his voice was soft. "I just don't want to see you hurt-"

"What, myself? Well you've already done a good job. So _back off_."

He didn't say anything after that. She ground her teeth when she noticed his hair was sticking up at odd angles; he had been shoving his hands through it again the way he did when he was upset. The wilted edges mocked her as if his tornado fingers were all her fault. Perhaps they were.

They drove in silence to Booth's apartment. She had forgotten, stupidly, that he lived above a liquor store. She paused before getting out. She hated herself for asking. She drove her tongue against the front of her teeth in punishment but it slipped out.

"What's good?" He didn't chuckle. He only opened the door and pocketed the keys, walking in with her. He picked a good amber scotch, one he liked more than she did, and some Dixie cups. Brennan knew without speaking he was joining her, uninvited in drinking. It felt good, in a sadistic way, with the knowledge he hurt too.

He paid but she slipped him half the cash and they walked up the stairs to his apartment. She hadn't been there in so long she found herself panting in terror. She almost backed out, but realized she'd have to take a cab home and she had given him the last of her cash.

"Ready to get shitfaced?"

"Please God," she answered to cover her embarrassment as he swung open the door.

* * *

><p>They were pathetic. Really. Brennan realized that as she gripped the microwave as the numbers swam in her eyes. She was sobbing. She realized she had been crying for some time now. She stopped but the tears were an unending irritation that flowed from her eyes. Snot coated the backs of her hands. She washed them before opening the microwave. She frowned. Where was the food? She hadn't been making food, she remembered.<p>

Why had she been staring at the microwave? Yet another drunk mystery unsolved for all time.

Booth sat slumped, in a stupor, his eyes open and his hand clutching an empty Dixie cup; she knew it was empty because it was crushed between the fingers of his fist. He hardly moved. He was disheveled, his tie and jacket on the floor. The first few buttons of his shirt had snapped open.

She wandered lost back into the room, still weeping. His eyes moved dully. He held out his other hand. The scotch bottle swayed precariously. She took it with a snuffled thank you.

She had already tried to call the tow service; they had laughed at her for being drunk. They had made her cry which was, admittedly, not hard in her state. The man had chuckled and told her to 'hang in there lady.' She wasn't a lady. Why would he call her that? She took a horrible burning swig and made a face.

"I hate you," she told Booth. "I hate you a lot." He hardly moved or acknowledged her. She tried stepping over his splayed legs.

"I hate you," she sobbed but fell on the floor. She lay there until she felt bile rising. She scrambled up, her fingers scraping on every available surface. She made it to his bathroom before heaving in the toilet. She gagged, sobbing, until she realized this was the room in which she had Booth had confronted one another about his reading all the letters. She sobbed harder, heaving until she could barely breathe, barely see.

Bliss.

Cold hands were smoothing her hair back, stroking her forehead. She shook her head back and forth. _No_. But he was smart enough, stupid enough actually, to understand _yes_.

"Couch," he grunted. He had hardly said three words. He drank with a grim intensity; his only proof of inebriation was his stumbling steps and his rank breath.

"Sick," she hiccupped.

"Hold it."

"Can't," she coughed and retched some more, but he was right; there was nothing left. The interminable time that had been so hellishly unending had finally exterminated itself in the culmination of her stupidity. She refused to look in the tub; would she see her words to him inked into the porcelain?

"Come on," he grunted again. He lifted her up by her armpits. She scrabbled helplessly, catching only air, before propelling herself to the couch.

"I hate you," she mumbled again. He didn't answer her. She fell onto the couch cushions. They smelled of him. She felt her streaming eyes cascade. She missed him. She told him.

"Really?" he seemed surprised.

"I can't even look at you," she admitted grimly, unselfconsciously wiping her nose with a sleeve, "but I miss this." She cleared her throat with a horrible sound like a cat hacking a hairball.

"Me too."

"I hate myself." She didn't mean to admit it. She was so used to saying she hated him; she must have mixed up the words. There was a long silence while Booth's alcohol addled brain processed what to say.

"Me too."

"Can we drink to hate?"

"We've drank to everything else."

"To hating ourselves," Brennan toasted weakly, and swallowed.

"But mostly me," he corrected morosely.

She didn't remember anymore.

* * *

><p>She woke before he did. She threw up twice more before calling a cab. She waited by the curb irrationally afraid he'd wake up and come find her. She sighed and touched her puffy face. The sun was gold and bright. It illuminated the cement with a white intensity that made her squint. She tried to stop when she remembered Booth always made fun of her for that. She fumbled for her bag and found some sunglasses. Perhaps Booth was right; there were miracles.<p>

She couldn't remember the last time she had slept until 1:30. Probably when her medical anthropology professor had been lecturing about the enduring practice of Maya bonesetters in Guatemala. That had been junior year of college.

Showering at her apartment refreshed her, as did coffee. She was very lucky her house keys and her car keys were on different key rings. She called the tow. Luckily, a different person answered the phone. He sounded bored. She took a cab back to the shooting range and met the man there while she shamefacedly stared at the gravel while he unhooked the lock and blandly handed her back her keys.

"That'll be 50 bucks." She paid him wordlessly, too ashamed to thank him.

She realized where she was before she could figure out where she was going. She stared blankly at the lab before she sighed and went back inside.

She worked mindlessly on her book; she wrote about 3,000 words, equivalent of a chapter and then wandered down to limbo. She identified one set of Korean War remains. It took about three hours. She glanced at the clock. It was five again. The last 24 hours might not have happened. For all she knew, she had fallen asleep at her desk and woken up to continue working.

She knew better.

She realized she hadn't eaten.

She went back to her office. She stuffed yesterday's dress into her bag and her high heeled boots. She stared in disgust at her letterbox. She couldn't imagine reading another one. The last two had almost killed her – literally in the case of alcohol. It was perfectly irritating she wanted to read another one. She closed her eyes and snatched one up before slinging her bag over her shoulder and worked her way back down the cement corridors of the underground parking garage to her car.

She felt her heart thunder but ignored it; it was a common fear reaction from being snatched by the gravedigger not two rows over. She was a firm believer in not giving way to her fears.  
>She shut the door hard to her car and drove for the first time in months to the diner. The waitress' face lit up. Brennan was gratified that she was missed, even if just by strangers. They seemed to be the only people who really noticed her as if the people too close to her were implemented with selective blindness.<p>

"Pancakes," she ordered with a small smile.

"Side of fries?" the waitress asked with a savvy nod. Brennan felt her eyes tilt down and smiled her blush. She nodded.

She reached into her bag and pulled out the crisp letter. The outside read: _Letter to a Changed Soul_

She didn't believe in souls.

_Dear Dr. Brennan,_

_ When I read your letter…I had to remind myself it was written years ago, the night we first met. _

Brennan frowned and panned down to the signature. Who was writing this? She swallowed and felt bad; she remembered this letter. Sweets.

_First of all, I must thank you for sharing your story._

Brennan cracked a smile around her forkful of pancakes. What an absolutely "shrinky" thing to say. Her smile faded; that thought had been a very Boothy thing to think. She swallowed. How come there was nothing left of herself?

_You are right. I have never seen someone seize, and I thank God for it, even if you don't believe in God. _

Sweets sometimes didn't make sense to her. She stuck a tongue firmly in her cheek, telling herself it was to dislodge a tiny piece of pancake. Sweets mostly didn't make sense to her.

_I have never held someone's hand while she was seizing, but I do remember holding my mother's hand while she was whipped. My father – Booth doesn't know it, but our pasts are very similar, only I escaped much, much sooner. I didn't have a Hank to come save me. _

Brennan stopped eating. She left her fork congealing in a pool of syrup as she grabbed the letter in both hands to make sure she was correctly interpreting the young psychologist's handwriting.

_My father was abusive, wildly so. You've seen the scars on my back, a year and a half after you wrote me that letter. You knew I had been beaten. Whipped. _

_ I grew up for the first five years of my life in a dark place. I don't remember a lot, just the feelings, some textures. There was always the smell of smoke; it clung to everything. It sank in the corduroy couch cushions, into the slightly acrid milk in my cereal, into my hair and my clothes until my teachers at preschool would change me into another little boy's 'accident' clothes while they washed mine. My parents never noticed; both of them smoked. My father didn't believe in spanking. I have scars from his lit butts on my own. _

Brennan frowned and felt sick. She was no stranger to cigarette burns; many of the foster kids had them. They were easily concealed but not easily mistaken. She was lucky the abusive homes she had lived in had hit her with an open hand; those bruises faded faster and could be mistaken for clumsiness or sports. In reality other children in the home, or other foster kids, had beaten her up more than their parents had. She had been a social pariah. A girl. A slender girl. An easy target.

She clenched her teeth, tasting cold gritty potatoes. She thought briefly of Sweets; he smiled all the time. She couldn't imagine a little boy with curly black hair living in a house like that and still smiling.

_ I remember never being able to see very well; my biological father was always drunk, or as my mother put it 'sick.' _

_ "Daddy's sick," she'd say. _

Brennan swallowed around her still clenched teeth, her abdomen tightening as well. His father had been sick.

_I was very young, but I remember holding my mother's hand as she cried. He would tie us to the posts of the bed and flay us on the floor. He didn't like tearing the sheets or getting blood on them. The carpet was dark, but it was full of our stains._

_ That sound of the whip crack – it was thunder, it was pain before the real pain came. I would watch as my mother's face would cringe, frozen in agony before the tail even flicked. He would wait for her, sometimes for minutes, until she would relax, until her eyes would squint open and her jaw loosen and then he would hit her. He would hit her until she couldn't hold herself up by her arms anymore. Sometimes the whip would curl around them by accident and leave giant cuts on them. _

_ She left when I was four. She didn't take any of her clothes, or her jewelry. She didn't even take the car. And she certainly didn't take me._

Brennan remembered on one of their cases, they had mocked Sweets mercilessly for his mother being a 'carny.' She had forgotten, as Booth had at the time, that his biological parents had tormented him.

_One day I was left at preschool for hours until finally and reluctantly the teacher drove me home. My father didn't notice for three days she was missing. _

_ It was the first night I got whipped in her place. _

Brennan crossed her arms, letting the letter fan in place. Her teeth hurt.

_It was actually her leaving that saved my life. The teacher who had sat with me as I quietly played at preschool and then took me home contacted social services. They took me away after eight months. I was five; I was just about to graduate kindergarten. _

Eight _months?_ Brennan wanted to scream, but she knew just how well the social care system worked.

_I am grateful every day that the teacher acted on my behalf, but as I'm sure you are thinking, eight months was a long time to be stuck in a household with only my father. _

_But it wasn't every day. Sometimes I'd get so sick from the infections on my back I'd have to miss school. Also he made sure that when I bled he'd bandage me up under my clothes. He was sadistically meticulous. He wanted to keep me._

_ For his punching bag_, Brennan seethed. She crossed her legs too, tightening her thighs and calves until she ached with being wound so tightly against the blasé pain Sweets shared unreservedly. She almost wished he had kept it. Almost.

_Shortly after I was put into foster care, I was adopted. I would later learn that my biological father was killed in some sort of fight – a mugging gone wrong, a bar brawl, but honestly it doesn't matter to me. I may be a psychologist but I am also human and that man was evil. Evil. Even if you don't believe in the cosmic dichotomy Dr. Brennan, believe in that._

She did.

_I was adopted by an elderly couple; I was six but I lived in their home from the start. I was so happy the day they told me I would never have to leave. I was very lucky to only be put in one home and then adopted. I realize no one would have ever considered adopting you._

Brennan knew it as well, intellectually, but when Sweets' put it like that, it sounded cold.

_They were wonderful parents. I had nightmares at first. I wet the bed. I was shy. I could barely speak and the first time my dad tried to play catch with me, I cried and ran away because he was throwing things at me. _

Brennan found it difficult to draw a breath around the tightness of her arms and stomach and throat.

_They were wonderful parents: madly in love, middle class, hardworking, enterprising and adoringly patient parents. They lived into their mid-eighties. I was twenty-two when they died. Both of them suffered from a congenital defect. My father died of a heart attack first in May. My mother was a shadow of herself until a stroke took her in her sleep in June. I buried them both and moved away. I couldn't stand to live in the house I grew up in; everything was theirs. I sold all of their belongings and furniture with the house except for what I managed to put in a warehouse somewhere I haven't seen for seven years. _

_ The day I met you and Agent Booth marked the one month anniversary of my mother's death. _

Brennan uncrossed her arms to scratch her cheek, dying to open her jaw just a little. She dropped her head in her hands and pushed her fingers deep into the front of her hairline until she realized she was mimicking Booth and she resumed her former crossed position.

_You called me a hypocrite in your letter. I am glad you never mailed it Dr. Brennan because those first few sessions with you and Agent Booth were very hard on me. I knew no one, and the two people I did know hated me. If I had known how much you hated me, I honestly believe I would have found another job. _Thank you_ for not sending the letter. _

Brennan frowned to accentuate her grimace of pain. Her neck spasmed, reminding her that she was holding all of her muscles too tightly. Sweets was the first person to thank her for _not_ sending the letter; she wondered how many others felt the same.

_However, I also look back and can see how my approach was off putting. This was my first and only job experience outside of college and the student health center. I was working for the government and I desperately wanted to be taken seriously. My attitude was probably incredibly invasive and honestly annoying._

Brennan wanted to smile but she felt frozen as she had when she had been in high school, waiting desperately for Russ to call _polo_ months after he had left.

_In addition, you also made some very good points. It's something many people struggle with, including myself, in regards to my profession. It is very hard to have a stranger judge you on where you are in life without knowing the backstory. Although Agent Booth hates it, there is a reason most psychologists and other professionals ask about your childhood. We understand the flaw in the logic as well as you do Dr. Brennan. We just want to know you. We have to know you in order to help you._

_ The problem is that many patients don't want to be there and that's especially true of the FBI. Although you dislike being judged on my superficial first impression, sociologically speaking, first impressions are important. I would say 85% of what we think about people derives from our first impression and the remaining 15% is just window dressing. _

_ As for you and Booth, you were right. Although it angered you, I was testing you two. As for my findings, they have hardly changed in the years. Like I said. 85% of what I saw was in that first session. How you and Booth have grown as people, especially you Dr. Brennan, and in your relationship with one another – well that's just the added 15%. It was obvious from the start you two had a very deep bond forged not only on trust, but on love. Whether you want to justify that love as familial, filial or even beyond is strictly up to you._

_ I hope that my answer is adequate and that I am no longer a threat to you and Booth. _

Brennan noticed he declined the titles. His diction told her more than his face could ever have.

_With all my best intentions, I hope we can still be friends._

_Warmest regards,_

_Lance Sweets _

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, staring at cold French fries. She missed Booth. He would know what to say, but she was also hyperaware that for the first time in a long time, someone had addressed her and not her partner.

"Is this seat taken?" Brennan sighed as she looked up and felt her drawn eyebrows painfully shoot up against her will. She forced a hand out as she calmly grated:

"Please."

"Is everything okay Dr. Brennan?" She forced herself to look away from his curly black hair and into his eyes. She couldn't stand it. She dropped her eyes down to his shoulders. She wondered if his scars felt tight, the way hers did.

"I'm sorry?" she asked politely. Her voice was as strained as her arm lock.

"You seem…wound up…defensive."

"What?"

"The crossed arms, the crossed legs, the frowning, the hunching…is everything okay?"

"Yes, I mean no. I mean-"

"Which is it?" Sweets asked with general good humor. She cricked her neck and heard it pop four times. His eyes widened; apparently he had heard it too. Wonderful. She unsnaked an arm from around her torso and forced the other one to drop limply into her lap. She held up the letter and shoved it under his nose.

"It's this."

"Oh." His voice was small. He looked immediately more defensive than she. "Look, it was really late when I wrote that, and I didn't read it over so I probably said-"

"Said some very interesting points," Brennan finished. She forced herself to smile. His face told her it wasn't very convincing. She felt slightly proud that she could deduce that much.

"What did you think?" Brennan sighed hugely. Sweets' hand was creeping slowly towards the plate of French fries. He jumped rudely when she shoved it at him, disgusted with herself.

"I think the whole concept of the letters…well, it was a mistake." He frowned while he shoved four fries at a time into his mouth.

"How so?" he asked in a muffled voice. He coughed and then swallowed behind a fist to his mouth. "I mean, for who? For you? Agent Booth?"

"For you," she sighed again, not quite meeting his gaze. "For the recipients. They were never meant to be read."

"That's what makes them so genuine. So honest."

"So cruel."

"No - well in some parts - but I value your honest opinion."

"As a client or as a friend?" she asked wryly. He waved irritatingly as he loosened his tie.

"The shrink is at the office working late tonight. I'm just Sweets right now."

"Well as 'just Sweets' what would you say if your partner read your diary?"

"I don't know," he said with deliberate slowness, steepling his fingers in a way that suggested that not all of his psychology could be left at the office. "I've never had a partner the way you and Booth have each other." She made a face.

"That's not a good answer."

"You're right," he sighed and then made a little boy's disgusted face. "God, you're right. That's a totally shrink answer. I mean, totally."

"Totally," she echoed. She thought briefly of Parker. She wondered if Booth had seen him. She shoved them both rudely out of the door of her mind.

"I would be pissed," Sweets acknowledged. "But the thing about anger is that it's draining." Brennan nodded slowly. She could identify. When Sweets glanced at her, eyebrows raised around another fistful of French fries she stopped with a scowl.

"So what, I'm just supposed to – pretend it never happened?"

"No, that's never a good answer to anything. I just think you need to confront each other and move on."

"What if we already did that?"

"Moved on?"

"No."

"You saw Agent Booth?"

"He was in the Lab," she said evasively.

"And are you okay with that?" Brennan flashed briefly to the shooting range.

"I don't know. I guess. He had Parker with him."

"So you couldn't yell at him in front of his son."

"No of course not."

"Well I suggest you yell at him."

"Why?" she asked in genuine astonishment. Sweets shrugged.

"It's healthy to be angry. It's not healthy to be passive aggressive. It just ends up hurting everyone around you."

"What if I've already been hurt by everyone around me?" She hadn't meant for that to slip out but she knew that although she had said it softly, Sweets hadn't missed it.

"Well…Booth sent out a cover letter with all the letters you wrote…he explained what he had done, why he was doing what he was doing, how he was trying to gain back your trust. He said you valued honest answers, but to also keep in mind where you were when you wrote them."

"Where I was?" she interrupted. Sweets shrugged again, tilting his head the way he always did when he was on a shrink roll.

"You know. Emotionally."

"_What?"_ Sweets stuck out his bottom teeth in alarm; he looked like a very angry llama.

"You've grown a lot, Dr. Brennan, in the years I've known you." She didn't know what to say.

"Thank you," she said at last in an uncomfortable tight voice.

"Anyway, if you're hurt by the letters we write back…don't read them."

"I have to know what they say!"

"Why?" he asked glibly. She groped for an explanation she didn't fully understand.

"Because…because I wrote them when I was searching for answers. Now I can have them."

"Why didn't you just ask us?"

"I don't know…at times…I mean look at your letter…I couldn't just…_ask you_. I might have hurt your feelings." Sweets smiled beatifically at her.

"Maybe you grew a lot more in years past than you thought."

"So," Brennan said uncomfortably, acutely aware that for the first time in her life she was willingly asking for advice from Sweets. "What should I do?"

"Talk to him."

"About what?"

"About why you're really angry."

"I'm angry because he read the letters."

"Why?"

"There were personal things in those letters!"

"You two share personal things all the time."

"Not to that…intensity."

"Also," Sweets guessed shrewdly, "these were topics you hadn't spoken about?"

"No," Brennan agreed, tacitly correcting his grammar. "These were not topics about which we had spoken." Sweets looked exasperated at her non-answer.

"But why does reading these letters make Booth the enemy? He knew you before this."

"No he didn't."

"Dr. Brennan –" Sweets said with an ingratiating and faintly sarcastic smile.

"Not like this," she insisted stubbornly.

"Okay good," Sweets encouraged, fanning his hands at her. She saw Booth's hands for an instant, tight on the steering wheel. "Why not like this?"

"I don't know."

"No, no, keep on track. What's different about the you in these letters that Booth can't see?"

"My past was very different."

"So was his and if he told you his past would you be…angry with him?"

"What? Of course not. He couldn't help it."

"Neither could you. So why would he be angry with you?"

"He wouldn't be angry with me! I'm angry with him!"

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because he couldn't help it."

"But you could?"

"Yes!" Brennan finally burst out. "I could have _done_ something. I just _sat_ there and watched my life go by. I just…watched. I wasn't a hero like Booth. I didn't fight back. I just cowered. I just sat there and took it. I waited for it."

"You liked it?"

"I liked being unhappy because I knew I had nothing to lose."

"Because you lost so much already."

"Yes!" Brennan realized her eyes were full of tears as she was leaning against her hands on the corner edge of the table top.

"You like being angry with Booth because you've already lost him. You can't be happy because it's not worth the risk."

"Yes, _yes._"

"Why would you think that?"

"Didn't you pay attention to your letter?" Brennan laughed, a few tears escaping. "I was _awful!"_

"You were a product of an awful situation. You thought I was threatening your partner. The only family you had."

"I am _not_ a product. I am better than that!"

"Yes you are! Dr. Brennan, look what you've achieved. A foster care system child who flew through college with honors and went to Northwestern University for her doctorates? You're a legend in the medical anthropology world. You've written award winning novels-"

"None of that matters!" she interrupted, waving it off.

"I thought your career mattered quite a –"

"I'm not a hero. I just sat there."

"You didn't – you went above and beyond – "

"NO," Brennan enunciated forcefully. "Someone gave me an opportunity and I took it. I applied for a scholarship and I left. But I didn't fight back. I didn't fight at all."

"You fought," Sweets said weakly. He seemed over awed by her defeat.

"No. Not like Booth. He was in a war. He had a childhood like war. I didn't fight. I ran away. I ran away just like my parents did, just like Russ did…just like I was taught. I'm no different."

"You're very different! You're-"

"Booth _fought_ for what he believed in! He fought for this country – for Parker- for me-"

"Why are you mad at him?"

"I don't deserve it!"

"Don't deserve what?"

"He read them _all,"_ she gulped, realizing her tears were running backwards up her tear ducts and down her throat. Her eyes were wide and glassy but her cheeks were dry. "He read them all and he still…he still wants-"

"Wants you?"

"Wants to be partners," she corrected absently in the midst of her tirade. Sweets let it slide in light of a important revelation. "But he still _wants_. Doesn't he get it? I'm not _enough_. I don't _deserve_-"

"None of us deserve anything," Sweets said flatly. "That's what grace is."

"Now you sound like Booth."

"An old priest at my school once taught us that mercy is not getting what you _do_ deserve and grace is _getting_ what you don't deserve."

"I don't want his grace! I want to be his partner!"

"Why don't you talk to him?"

"Because I'm not mad at him!"

"Really?"

"I mean, I was, but now…now I'm just confused. And I don't think – I do think – I think that this is a good breaking point."

"_What?"_

_ "_Now is a good time – a good excuse-"

"To break up with him?"

"We're not together like that, but yes. To go our separate ways. Then he can find someone who deserves him."

"What if he thinks you deserve him?"

"It doesn't matter what he thinks."

"Aren't partnerships two ways?"

"Yes! Exactly! That's why this won't work."

"Because he is a fighter?"

"Yes."

"You can fight."

"I had to teach myself to fight."

"Not all of us are born with the same abilities. I can't fight. I didn't fight either. When there was that whip-"

"It's different. You were a young child. Five. I was fifteen. It's different."

"Fifteen is hardly an adult."

"It's old enough to know better."

"To know better than what?"

"To know better than to sit there. But I couldn't move."

"Move when?"

"Ever. In class. At home. It didn't matter. I couldn't move."

"Booth helped?"

"Booth made me run."

"Run?"

"To catch up. He made me want to catch up."

"To catch up?"

"To him."

"To be like him?"

"Yes – no – maybe." Brennan finally liquefied against her chair, her ferocious intensity gone in the wake of exhaustion. She confessed. "We talked. We fought, actually. Then we drank some."

"You two really do like to drink."

"It's our way of not talking."

"That may not be the best way to-"

"You don't need to sermonize. I know about Booth's father."

"Do you think Booth is good enough for you?"

"What?"

"Do you think Agent Booth is good enough for you?"

"Yes of course. Booth is better than me."

"Have you ever asked him if he thinks he's better than you?"

"Well of course he wouldn't say it."

"You think he thinks it?"

"No, he probably has some misguided ego about the whole issue."

"Sounds familiar." Brennan missed the entendre. She decided if she was confessing, she might as well do a proper job of it.

"I yelled at Angela."

"Why?"

"For her letter."

"Why? If I can ask."

"It was stupid. She told me she meddles."

"You knew that."

"She tells Booth things."

"So?"

"Things about me."

"So?"

"Private things I haven't told him."

"Did you ever think she was doing it as a friend?"

"What?"

"That she loves you and she is looking out for you so Booth didn't press too hard on sensitive issues?"

"That's what she said."

"You didn't believe her?"

"I guess so, but at the time…I don't know. I was just…so angry. I left."

"Why don't you go see her now?"

"Do I have to?" It slipped out, a small Parker whine in the face of an eternally consequential conversation. Sweets smiled sweetly, the way he was wont to do.

"No."

"But I should?"

"Advice as a friend or as a shrink?"

"I thought you left the shrink at the office."

"I can never leave the shrink at the office. He gets lonely."

"What?"

"Never mind. I say go see her."

"Now?"

"Why not?"

"It's late," she stammered.

"Then in the morning."

"It's Sunday."

"Are they religious?"

"I don't think so."

"Then bring them breakfast."

"Angela?"

"And Hodgins," Sweets reminded her patiently.

"Oh. Right. Why?"

"It's generally polite when calling early to break the unconventional flaunting of the norm of calling hours with a gift."

"To establish good will," she supplemented. He nodded with an angelic smile.

"Anthropology," she sniffed. "I'm impressed." Sweets shrugged.

"I try." Brennan threw some money on the table.

"If you don't mind…I think I'm going to-"

"No. Go. It's all good." Brennan stood and shouldered her bag over her shoulder. She smiled and managed to incorporate her newfound slang in.

"Totally."


	5. I Bend But Don't Break

**The original letter is in chapter 9. Guys do I really have to beg for reviews?**

* * *

><p>It was too early to be at Angela's house. Brennan knew that but it hadn't stopped her from trailing reluctantly home and sitting, unblinking, thinking about what Sweets, Max, Angela and Booth had said. It had taken all night before she had finished processing, and she wasn't even sure how she felt yet. At five she had changed clothes. At six she had bought breakfast from an all night diner – not hers – and driven to Angela's house. They had a baby, she had reasoned, they would be awake.<p>

She felt idiotic now. She had been - Booth would say 'skulking' - in the driveway for half an hour, her car parked as she sat numbly in the front seat, the entire car smelling of warm pancakes growing cold. She had just worked up the nerve to back down the driveway, call Angela, and then circle the block, when Angela opened the door and pointed at her before crooking her finger in an unmistakable 'come here' gesture. Brennan gulped and grabbed her bags before slinking out of the car shamefacedly.

"Sweetie," Angela enthused. She frowned. "What are you doing here?" Brennan hoisted a bag for a back up to her explanation.

"I brought breakfast." Angela screwed up her face.

"At six o'clock on a Sunday morning?"

"I brought Hodgins some too," Brennan assured her. Angela lifted an eyebrow and pursed her lips. Brennan remembered that this was Angela's usual skepticism. She swallowed.

"Sweets said it was okay," she finally admitted. A graceful eyebrow rose, a lost balloon, over one almond shaped eye.

"Really, and what else did Sweets say?"

"To bring extra food."

"He's smart," remarked Hodgins with good cheer, coming out of a back room. "We were up with Michael anyway." Angela shot him a dithering look. "Okay," he amended. "I was _woken_ up by Michael, but Angela got him this time. What'd you bring me, food Santa?"

"I don't know what that means," she frowned blankly.

"And are you saying she looks like a fat bearded old man? Jack, if that's the case then what do you think of me?"

"You're beautiful," he hastily followed up, gulping straight from the orange juice jug. He winced and slapped it hard on the counter and picked up a glass. Angela resumed her smile. Brennan felt her own eyebrows float away. What an interesting social dynamic this suburban family had.

"Not that I'm not grateful for the…"

"Pancakes," Hodgins supplied with a faux swoon as he took out some plates and rummaged for syrup.

"But…sweetie what are you doing here?"

"At six thirty in the morning?" Brennan finished wryly. Angela nodded a tiny, guilty nod. "I…I wanted to apologize. For the way I…The video…the letter caught me off guard and…I felt like I reacted…very poorly and…" Angela saved her from her nonstarter sentences. Brennan was ashamed at her inability to articulate any semblance of a logical apology. Hodgins whistled a grin around a spoon turned upside down on his tongue before he yanked it out.

"Have you read mine yet?"

"What?" Brennan asked in astonishment.

"My letter! Have you read it yet?" Brennan shook her head mutely. He seemed unruffled by what was for her, a very honest statement about her emotions. "I just found the letterbox…" she had been about to say yesterday but amended her statement, "two days ago."

"Seriously?" he choked and Brennan realized he had been pouring honey into a spoon and eating it like a child. Angela snatched the spoon away as if he were in danger of swallowing it whole.

"Why?"

"We thought…we all thought that you had read them and now never wanted to speak to us again."

"We?" Brennan asked with all the delicacy of a surgeon.

"Me, Angela," he gestured. She directed a withering glare and he wilted like a flower under too much sunlight before continuing. "Cam…Booth…everyone…" He shrugged. "We thought you were mad at us."

"_Me_?" she blinked. She couldn't think of what else to say.

"That's why I was surprised sweetie, when you showed me my letter. I thought maybe…" Angela blushed. "It sounds really stupid, but I thought maybe you had saved mine for last."

"That does sound stupid," Brennan said bluntly, and all of a sudden the sleepy, curly haired entomologist didn't look half so adorable as he had before he had bristled up, puffing his chest out and causing Brennan to realize since the first time she had walked into their house that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Odd. She usually, as a woman, noticed those things. She was losing her touch. Or needed sexual stimulation. Possibly both, and most probably the latter.

"Because if there was anyone's – if I could guess from the outside – who I would save for last it would obviously be Booth's." Angela, who had looked crushed, squeaked a singular yelp of surprise and grabbed Brennan's hand, as if congratulating her on figuring out something crucial. Brennan frowned at her and wrung her grasp away in order to reach across the bag and take the stack of plates, methodically moving around the table.

"Sweetie you don't have to do that," Angela protested at once.

"Yeah we never do that," Hodgins corroborated. "We usually just eat standing in the kitchen eating out of the pan." There was a thwack and Hodgins made an oomphing sound and Brennan managed to glimpse Angela's backhand and glare.

"I want to," Brennan said firmly. "I haven't…" she cleared her throat, suddenly contentious of her actions and how they affected others, "I haven't seen you…for quite some time."

"And whose fault is that?" Angela asked pointedly. Brennan shrugged.

"Not mine." She caught the couple trading glances. "It wasn't!" she protested more vehemently. "I didn't realize people were putting letters _inside _my letterbox. There are still lots I haven't read, and some come in all the time with the boy who delivers the mail."

"Brian," supplied Angela. Brennan shrugged the memory of his name off in uncaring obedience to social norms as she creased her napkins precisely under each fork and knife. She set the cups and poured the juice and distributed the rest of the food onto each plate. Hodgins was halfway through his before either Angela or Brennan had time to pick up a fork.

"Well then why were you so quiet?" Hodgins finally gulped as he ventilated his mouth through his teeth, wheezing air to cool the congealing hash browns burning his esophagus. Brennan passed him a glass of water. He nodded his thanks as he chugged.

"I don't know," Brennan said self consciously. "You were all…talking to Booth. You didn't seem as upset at what he had done…I thought…"

"You thought we were taking his side?" Angela finished for her, with hurt surprise in her voice.

"It's never been an issue of us against one another before," Brennan said softly. Hodgins choked.

"You're kidding right? You guys fight all the time." Brennan blinked furiously.

"Not like this Jack," Angela warned him softly. Hodgins bit his lip, hard.

"Not all of my letters," Brennan temporized, "Were as…kind…as yours were."

"Mine wasn't kind," Angela blurted. Hodgins elbowed her in the ribs before striding off to put on a shirt.

"I read Angela's too," he called from down the hall. Brennan dropped her fork with a clang, her appetite culled. "It wasn't kind, sure, not like your love letter to me," he came back with a wicked grin on his face. "But it wasn't mean either."

"Some were mean," Brennan said glumly, sighing. "Sweets' was mean. My father's was…" she gusted a breath out, a gale in such a quiet kitchen, "...complicated."

"Did you write one to your mother?" Angela asked into the hush. Brennan nodded miserably.

"I wrote hers when I was fifteen." She saw the flickering surprise on Angela's face. Both her and Hodgins' letters had been from her as an adult. She continued wearily: "Max answered for both of them."

"And?" Brennan reached her hands for her face to bury them but confused her gesture, aborting it at the last minute so not to look weak, but ended up flailing in confusion before she squeezed them tightly together, tucking them into her lap.

"I read it. Night before last. After I saw yours, Ange…" she trailed off, reaching for her face again. She changed course. She tried to touch her hair but it reminded her too much of Booth. She fisted her hands back in her lap uselessly feeling on the verge of tears. Hodgins hastily began clearing plates from the table, willing for once to do the dishes. Brennan couldn't tell him, but she appreciated the gesture. It was better than having both of their expectant faces watching her.

"It's okay sweetie," Angela hastened to assure her.

"It's not okay," Brennan snapped vehemently. "It's _not_ okay." She glanced shamefacedly at her twisting fingers. "I came to apologize for my behavior." Angela's face was an accordion, folding in on itself in unhappy creases.

"Sweetie…" Angela was hesitant in placing her fingers lightly on the table. Brennan knew that Angela wanted to put them on her arm, but she had twisted them out of reach on purpose. "I hate to sound like my letter…"

"It _is_ your voice," Brennan interrupted with an unapologetic shrug. "You can't help your basic personality." Hodgins stopped ferrying to and from the table. His glare didn't faze her, but she modulated her tone at his castigation. Angela smiled a tiny smile and tapped her fingertips lightly on the table.

"I think…and don't be mad at me Brennan, but I think you should talk to Booth." She held her breath and Brennan frowned.

"I did."

"What?" Her explosion of a sigh forced her husband back on his heels as he took it as invitation to sink back down at the table for the juicier gossip.

"Booth came into my office-"

"Oh, not that," Angela waved it off. "Booth was looking for you when you left the lab."

"Yes," Brennan said, not-so-patiently, "I went to the shooting range. He found me there."

"He…found you?" Angela said delicately picking over her diction. Brennan winced, then winced again for the facial giveaway. Although the world would be easier if everyone told the truth, she could see the allure in lies.

"Sweetie?" Angela said worriedly. Brennan stuck out her bottom jaw and pinched her lips together, the skin tightening around her eyes. She found the memory as painful as it happened.

"We fought," she summed succinctly.

"Jack," snapped Angela. "Go get dressed."

"Why? It's Sunday?"

"Jack!" Angela hissed and he finally caught on.

"Oh right. That thing. Sorry Dr. B…I've got to-" he jerked a thumb but it went sideways and landed on the cabinet. He sucked in an aggrieved breath and stuck it in his mouth.

"Don't be a baby Hodgins," Angela prodded, trying to usher her husband out as fast as he could go before her best friend lost her sharing mood.

"He is sucking his thumb," Brennan pointed out primly. Hodgins grinned, his teeth still sunk into his thumb.

"And I know that Michael and I share an affinity for sucking on-"

"JACK!" Angela bellowed. Down the hall a baby began fussing. She smiled pleasantly, a smile full of big sharp teeth and flashing eyes. "The baby is up." Hodgins blushed but gave Brennan the thumbs up behind his wife's head before spinning and half jogging down the hall.

"What do you mean, you fought?" Angela pounced immediately, and Brennan felt that all of the joy she had felt over breakfast had been sucked away with Hodgins' disappearance. She slumped back in her seat, covering herself with her arms crossly folded. She sucked in a huge breath and found herself embarrassingly close to tears.

"My father's letter…" she cleared her throat in correction, "Max's letter…toyed with my emotional fragility leftover from adolescence."

"Your dad snapped your heartstrings," Angela said impatiently, "I get it."

"I was…upset," Brennan said, thrusting her jaw sideways hard enough to keep the tears inside.

"How upset?" Angela cautiously ventured. "World War I or World War II?"

"Hiroshima." Brennan appreciated that her best friend knew her well enough to make emotional talks more accessible to her. Angela smacked a tongue against her teeth, her version of a long whistle of surprise.

"Okay," she said finally. "You were upset. You were…crying?" she trailed off gingerly. A tight nod accompanied her guess.

"And shooting?" Angela's voice went up a few octaves. Another jerky nod.

"And Booth _still_ walked in there?" Brennan stared at the floor. Angela sighed hugely and ran her hand over her tousled hair. Brennan swallowed hard; she didn't like things that reminded her of Booth.

"Okay," Angela said quietly. "Then what?"

"He told me…" Brennan's voice was a thread of a whisper, unraveling a whole quilt. "He told me that I should yell at him. Hurt him back, that then we'd be even."

"Did you?"

"Did I what?" Brennan knew she was being purposefully obtuse.

"Yell at him?"

"Yes." A quiet confession. An uglier thought dawned.

"Did you…hit him?"

"Just once." Angela felt her curiosity pique.

"Where?" Brennan raised her eyebrows and Angela smiled at the table. "Ah."

"Then we got drunk," Brennan was proud to note her voice was back to normal speaking level and inflection. Her friend looked surprised.

"What?"

"I wanted to get a drink…by myself," she begrudgingly added, "but Booth bought a handle of scotch…and then…"

"Then what?" Angela panted eagerly. Brennan frowned at her, disgust pursing her lips.

"Then I got sick and Booth passed out. I woke up, took a cab, went to the lab, worked, saw Sweets, saw you."

"So you haven't slept in two _days_?" Angela asked skeptically, her voice flavored with something Brennan had finally pinpointed as accusatory worry. It usually cropped up when Angela was exasperated with her actions.

"I slept," she protested, "when I lost consciousness."

"That's drunk sleep," Angela corrected. "That's totally different."

"I don't see how."

"How are you sitting here? Oh sweetie, you look awful."

"What?" protested Brennan again. "I changed clothes! I took a shower! I'm clean."

"Not awful in that way."

"In what way?" Brennan realized her voice was escalating in pitch and she tried to modulate it lest it give her away. By Angela's face, it was too late, or there were a myriad of other social factors she didn't understand enough to block.

"In the everyone-at-the-lab-has-noticed kind of way." The speaker was not Angela, but Hodgins carrying his son who had fallen back asleep in his arms.

Brennan blushed hard.

"That's not true," she stammered. Silence greeted her sardonically. She curled a lip.

"Well," she finally cleared her throat. "I should really be going."

"Absolutely not," Angela snapped firmly.

"What?"

"I said absolutely not."

"I heard what you said but I don't understand why-"

"You need to sleep. If you go home or back to the lab, I know you'll open another letter."

"You can't know that," Brennan argued but had the sinking suspicion Angela was right.

"Yes I can," Angela argued impatiently, unflustered by Brennan's embarrassed shrinking emotional state. "I watched Booth read through them all-" Brennan made an ugly little sound in the back of her throat but Angela kept talking over it, "-and he looked _awful_ for three weeks."

"It was almost a month," Hodgins corroborated. Angela flourished at her husband as if she were a glamorous presenter on a game show and her husband had just given the winning answer.

"See? Booth never slept. I'm sure the letters gave him nightmares."

"You can't know that," Brennan argued again, but her voice was weak this time. She had never wanted to give Booth nightmares.

"So what I'm saying is that you will march into our guest room and put on my pajamas and crawl between the sheets and go to sleep."

"I'm ruining your Sunday," Brennan protested, but it was a whine.

Angela made a tsking sound. "You were the one who brought us breakfast. You must of foreseen this as an outcome."

"Actually…no. I have no idea where I am right now."

That honest confession hung in the kitchen more sturdily than the rack holding the pots above the stove, ironclad and black with its bleakness.

Angela drew a huge breath.

"Jack," she directed. "Don't feed Michael too much honey." Hodgins looked up guiltily, the tip of his pinky in his son's mouth. "I'll be back. Let me get Brennan settled in."

"Sleep well," he called after her. She looked back over her shoulder.

"Thanks Hodgins," she said softly. In less than five minutes, she was in silk pajamas.

She fell asleep around the time she heard Angela sliding the shutters closed.

"Wow," was the last thing she heard as Angela observed her sleep. "That was fast. She was tired."

_You have no idea_, she wanted to tell her.

* * *

><p>Brennan awoke suddenly, confused at afternoon light on the walls. There was a note by her hand that crinkled when she moved it in an inching motion towards the cool side of the sheets the way she always did when she woke up dreaming of Booth. She felt vaguely disappointed that he wasn't there, and, as she focused her eyes, neither were Angela and Hodgins.<p>

_Ran to the store sweetie! Be back soon!_

She stumbled out into the bathroom and managed to pull her clothes back on.

"Hey," Hodgins said with a frown, startling her from behind. "Where you slinking off to?" He winked. "Our morning after not so friendly?"

"It is after morning," she agreed with no comprehension to why he was grinning so fatuously.

"So what do you usually do on the weekends?" he asked her cheerfully, crossing his arms with no intention of moving as she finger combed her hair, stole a glance back at him before grabbing a spare hairbrush and yanking it through with brutal but efficient strokes.

"Work," she answered brusquely, and pushed past him. She found the kitchen clean, which disappointed her because she had been planning to steal a leftover pancake as lunch.

"Angela packed you a lunch," Hodgins informed her good naturedly. "She said you'd wake up flustered and for me not to try and stop you."

"Um. Good." Brennan tilted her head and crinkled her nose. "I think." She opened the fridge and found a brown paper bag neatly folded that made her vision swim for a moment. She couldn't remember the last time someone had packed her lunch. Not since her mother died, for sure.

"If you do want to stay," Hodgins continued blithely. "We are going to the park."

"No, no," she murmured distractedly. "I've encroached enough."

"As a friend," Hodgins said, touching her arm, his voice suddenly an octave deeper and his eyes more serious, "I think you should take a break. You've had a hell of a weekend. Come on. Hold your godson. He hasn't seen his Aunt Brennan in weeks. He hardly knows you. And Angela – man she's going crazy without you. And Booth-"

Brennan jerked violently away and Hodgins' face crumpled, clearly belying that he had realized his guilt trip had sprung on its owner when he had thrown too much bait into the lure. Booth was no longer bait. He was the trap, and Brennan avoided any mention of him with the same wariness.

"I'll be at the lab," she informed him.

"Until six," Hodgins warned her.

"What time is it?" she asked breathlessly.

"2:30."

"Hmm," was all she commented.

"Seriously _what _do you do on weekends?" Hodgins asked in exasperation. "You can't work_ all the time_!"

"Yes I can," she prevaricated.

"No seriously." Hodgins was blocking her path to her keys.

"The weekend," she said self consciously, suddenly as serious as he was and losing all of her briskness, "was my time…with Booth."

"Ah shit," Hodgins said with a wince. "My bad. I didn't realize that you guys were so-"

"So what?" Brennan asked with raised eyebrows.

"Close."

"We were," she said grimly as she headed for the door.

"I thought you talked to him!" Hodgins called desperately.

"Once," she threw back over her shoulder. "It's not like it was fixed overnight."

"Oh boy," Hodgins breathed, but Brennan was already slamming the apartment door. She strode to her car and somehow ended up in her office. She stopped and looked back a few paces. She couldn't remember getting here. She thought back hard and realized well yes, she _remembered_ if she tried the red fire hydrant and the lost dog poster of a cute faced Pomeranian and the hugely pregnant woman crossing the street but honestly she hadn't been awake in conscious present until this very moment. It was incredibly unsettling.

"Limbo," she whispered to herself, and went to put her keys in the bowl on her desk. There was always work to do in limbo.

She pulled on a lab coat out of force of habit. The gloves were downstairs. She was striding out of the hall when something bright caught her eye. She turned slowly, angrily, to her letterbox. It was swaying slightly from a draft in the vent above it. She repositioned it firmly and walked away. She flinched at the sound of it hitting the floor.

"This cannot be happening," she murmured, but the sight of all the unopened envelopes on the floor gave her pause. She hated herself, loathed herself for being so weak as Booth, but the blank faces of tiny rows of secrets beckoned. She stacked them viciously and crammed them back in the bottom buttoned door. She turned to go back down to limbo and realized she was still holding one.

_Letter to a Survivor_

She didn't know what that meant. She turned it over and realized that it was addressed to her and the title was on the back. There was a stamp in the corner. Her first letter from what she considered 'the outside world.' Outside her circle of friends, of family. She wandered down to limbo worrying at the corners of the flap. She looked up at the final tear and realized she was halfway down one of the seemingly endless corridors of limbo out of absent-mindedness. She dropped to a fluid crouch, telling herself it was to read the box number's identification. She opened the letter.

_Dr. Temperance Brennan, _

_You may not remember me, but my name is James Kent._

She knew who he was. He said it for her anyway.

_I'm the father of the twins Ryan and Matthew whose remains-_ Brennan had to wonder how difficult it had been to pen that word and how many alternatives he had sifted through before settling on it. Not 'bodies' or 'corpses' or 'my sons' but just that simple little innocuous word that was such an integral part of her daily profession: remains. That which remains behind. _–you discovered in November 15__th__, 2006, after which you were successively kidnapped and were almost killed. _

_You may be wondering what I am doing writing to you, but Agent Booth, in his introduction, explained that many of the intended recipients of the letters you wrote have passed away_ – another interesting word choice for died, Brennan noted, – _and so your letter to Heather Taffett, the woman who paraded herself as the gravedigger and who slaughtered my sons, was passed to me. Agent Booth said that of everyone, I was intended to have it so I could know closure here in prison. _

_Your letter was raw _– Brennan shuddered at his continued unsettling word choice – _rife with emotion but there was something I picked out that wasn't said outright. You spoke of being scared, but I could sense the disgust present there as well. It underpinned all your sentences as if you were wearing the slightly bulging upper lip and curl of one side of your mouth while speaking. It was misplaced disgust because for the longest time I could not figure out at whom it was directed. The gravedigger inspired your terror and your hatred, your mention of your colleague inspired pride and love, but disgust was not present anywhere. And then, I finally figured it out._

Brennan went cold, goosebumps erupting along her forearms and on the sensitive inner skin of her wrist.

_You are disgusted with yourself._

Brennan turned her face sharply away as if Booth was across from her, reading her like an open book.

_It is not unusual this dichotomy present within all of us who have suffered. I have been there, though not to this extreme, after the boys' mother died, and of course the boys themselves. I'm not a scientist, Dr. Brennan. I am not a psychologist, and so my names for the feeling are rather juvenile. I call it the hider/hater juxtaposition. _

_See, when depressed – yes depressed – or grief stricken, traumatized or shocked, there is a crushing sense of apathy that you so wonderfully described. It stifles the senses, makes you feel like you can't quite expand your lungs, can't move your limbs enough to let gravity take hold and pull your torso towards the ground far enough for you to get up, to experience vertigo before you fall. But there's also the sense that you probably would fall and not catch yourself because you are exhausted. You are angry, sad, distraught, numb, but mostly exhausted. Blinking takes an age. Will I open my eyes? Why bother? But then of course, there's nothing else to look at._

Brennan's hip was hurting her and she realized belatedly she was crouching painfully in the center aisle of limbo. She tucked it underneath her and the blood flow was cut off. She winced, stretching it out beneath her body in front of her, propping her spine up against someone else's third vertebrae visible through the translucent boxes.

_But of course there is that inner voice we all share, regardless of our personality, our interests, our spiritual beliefs or lack thereof. _

She had to smile at that.

_I call it 'the hater.' It's the voice that begins to yell at you as you slowly spiral downwards in depression. It mocks you, cruelly, endlessly, taunting your every breath, berating you for your stupidity, your languor, your complete lack of a justification for a reaction of this magnitude. It castigates, it implies. It makes you feel even more despised and alone, that even your own mind couldn't stand to be around you, so why should anyone else?_

She stopped smiling.

_And so when the hater attacks your emotional core, the thing you hide from the rest of the world –_

Mr. Kent had no idea the truth in his words.

_-you begin to wilt. You begin to hide. In your letter, you describe this fear as keeping you pinned to your apartment, and then to your bed, and then afraid of the floor, the ceiling, the aching loneliness of the very air. _

Yes, Brennan wanted to say. Yes.

_But that wasn't all the gravedigger was it? You said she had also forced you to become your own jailor until you were, and I quote, _excruciatingly_ lonely. _

Brennan felt her breath hitch up and held it inside of her, as if the very air could keep her inflated when everything inside of her felt like it was withering, a fire burning its structure away, leaving only pallid ash in its wake.

_And so the hater hunts your emotions, which hide and become the hider. It becomes a vicious children's game of hide and seek with yourself. This breeds disgust. You are disgusted with your weakness, with your division, with your depression, with your fear. This rage, this contempt for yourself feeds on your loneliness, and why would you seek anyone out? How could anyone love you?_

Brennan let out all the air at once, crumpling in on the one knee she had left propped up, tears filling her eyes, her teeth catching the denim of her jeans at the bend.

_It's that disgust that plagued you – perhaps still plagues you – that I am grateful for._

_ What?_ Brennan was frustrated with her confusion, feeling as if he were simply yanking her around cruelly the way Max had done.

_My sons were slaughtered like animals. Suffocated. Terrified. One was run over by a car. In the end, they died anyway, Matthew bleeding out from a pencil to his carotid and Ryan holding his dead brother's body until he passed out, terrified and alone. I am not sugar coating it for you Dr. Brennan. You were there._

_ Yes,_ she wanted to say. _But I am alone now. _And she was scared. She didn't want to admit it, but the air in limbo seemed suddenly chillier, harder to breathe…emptier. She twisted around suddenly, afraid irrationally she knew, of someone creeping down the stairs and taking her by surprise. But unless Booth's theory of horror movie zombies was real, Heather Taffett was nowhere to be seen.

_I am grateful that they did not suffer._

Brennan blinked and then scratched her eyes, still checking from their corners that she was alone. Those twins had died in one of the more horrible deaths she had ever been a witness to as a forensic anthropologist. She didn't understand their father's meaning. The only logical conclusion, she knew, was to keep reading.

_You suffered, Dr. Brennan. I have no doubt that you will have nightmares for the rest of your life._

Brennan rested her chin against her chest, ashamed.

_But so will I. _

_ Matthew and Ryan are safe now. They suffered only briefly, a twelve hour span. I have years alone in prison to agonize before I finally die. They do not struggle with hating themselves, with hiding in shame for what they feel. They do not find themselves alone at night, with no one there. _

Brennan hadn't realized until this moment how very lonely her life really was in the moments after she didn't see her friends.

_You wrote about the bond you felt between your captor and you as a captive. Matthew and Ryan are not subjected to it. I have never thought I would find any good from my sons' deaths. I never thought I could find some measure of peace in what she did. It is still a gruesome murder that will haunt me to my grave and perhaps to whatever lies beyond; I wish none of this had ever happened. But it did happen. It happened to them. I am glad they did not suffer. _

_ I'm sincerely sorry for your loss of self and I hope you find it again some day._

_ With regards,_

_ James Kent_

Brennan shivered and for some reason felt compelled to run upstairs. It made no logical sense in the slightest, but she grabbed her purse on the way, scooped up her charts and sprinted up the stairs. When she was in her office, panting, she felt foolish but still on edge. She understood for the first time why Angela disliked the place; it was rather eerie. She peered out into the black dim lights of the lab. A guard waved at her. She sighed a huge sigh and waved back.

"Good afternoon Dr. Brennan!"

"Afternoon!" He chuckled and looked at his watch before shouting back.

"Careful you don't stay until nightfall!"

"I'll see you," she called, before shutting her door. She wanted to work on her book but the sudden rush of terrorized adrenaline that had shot through her had dissipated in knowing she wasn't alone. She sank onto her couch, a broken carousel horse that could only go down, and felt immediately sleepy, even though she had already slept for six hours previous. She kicked off her shoes and pulled the blanket up under her chin.

"Half an hour," she told herself sternly, but she smiled slightly, knowing a lie for once, when she heard one.

* * *

><p>"Brennan!" That was Hodgins' voice. She knew it even asleep.<p>

"Bones!" That voice startled her wide awake, snapping her eyes open. He knew where to find her long before Hodgins had begun looking in the right places. He popped into her office and frowned at her sleeping on the couch.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking a nap." It was supposed to come out defensively but it came out weak and questioning, like a little girl in trouble.

"I meant here at the lab."

"Working." This one at least had more volume to it.

"Well come on! Hodgins and Angela are having a picnic!" His little boy eagerness made her smile tiredly before she realized how he was treating her: as if nothing had changed. Everything had changed. One conversation wasn't going to fix it and the conversation had _also_ been part of the change.

She saw his smile falter and go flat as he caught onto her line of reasoning. She didn't know how, but that man could read minds. If it weren't such an absurd notion, she'd be sure of it. They were both saved the awkwardness of speaking by Angela drifting in with Hodgins frowning at her side. She looked dreamily at them both, but her words were for Brennan alone.

"There's a dead person in limbo."


	6. And Somehow I'll Get Through

**So every time I went to post this story, something/(some character) screamed WAIT! There's just a little more...and thus it became a monstrously long chapter. I hope that's okay with you guys...reviews? :) I had a hard week...so extra reviews would be super sweet. Also, the sent letter was in ch 10. It's cool if you guys want to keep commenting on that story too.**

* * *

><p>The panic was not instantaneous. Brennan frowned at her with a disgusted expression.<p>

"Of course there are dead people in Limbo. And it isn't Limbo, it is the Bone Storage Room, not a purgatory of lost souls."

"They are lost," Angela murmured absently. "But that's not what I mean. I mean there is a dead body down there."

"What?" Booth thundered. He strode from the room with leggy strides as Brennan pursed her lips.

"Dad?" Brennan felt her mouth go slack with surprise.

"Oh, hey Bones. Have you seen my dad?" Parker chirruped, poking his head around the corner of her office. "Miss Angela and Dr. Hodgins are taking us to the park! They have a new baby!"

"Yes, I know," she faltered. She almost smiled somewhere deep down at Parker's politeness.

"You can call me Hodgins," Hodgins assured the boy, ruffling his hair. "I've known you since you were this big." He held a hand near his thigh. "I met your dad when you were just four years old."

Parker scrunched up his face. "Okay Dr. Hodgins." Hodgins sighed and instead took Angela by the hands and sat her down.

"Are you okay?"

"I've seen plenty of dead people," she murmured inanely. "But not like that. Not up close just…like he was sleeping. But there's all this blood and-"

"Wait what?" Parker jumped on Angela's shocked ramblings.

"Hey bud-" Hodgins was clearly better with children than Brennan, who had been sitting with a stunned expression, mouth open. "-can you go check on Michael? He's in his stroller."

"Yeah," faltered Parker. "Yeah sure. Bones?" He stared up with her with big, soulful eyes, full of hope and so much innocence it burned her heart. "Is my dad gonna be okay?"

"Totally," she whispered. His answering smile was as bright as a car battery powered Christmas tree.

"I'm going to go take care of the baby," he told her self-importantly.

"Okay Parker. I'm going to go check on your dad."

"Deal," he exclaimed bouncing away, even though there had been no discernible bargain. His carefree nature hadn't yet grasped that there was a murderer nearby. Brennan, for the first time in her life, thought of Parker first, and not the case.

"Parker!" she called. Parker spun back around. "Why don't you bring the stroller into my office so that Angela can watch over Michael?" She could see the stroller and next to Hodgins' lab set.

"Sure," he told her and skipped off, but she couldn't turn. She watched, terrified out of her mind for him, as he took a few steps. She wanted to run faster than she was able, sure she was sending him into a trap. What about the baby? What if the baby wasn't there? She took a few hesitant steps before breaking into a sweat and a jog simultaneously.

Parker grinned and pushed the stroller back at her speed, running behind the handles too high for his head. They met in the middle.

"Is he okay?" Brennan gasped. She lifted Michael out, inexpertly tangling with the straps until Parker patiently unclipped them for her. Her godson gurgled and patted her face with a tiny clenched fist.

"Oh thank God," she breathed. She turned and ruffled Parker's hair. He ducked out from under her with a scowl.

"Bones?" although his scowl had been fearless, his voice was the opposite. "What's going on?"

"I don't know Parker," she told him honestly. They walked quickly but silently back to her office. Angela looked up in terror seeing Brennan holding her son, but Brennan handed him over immediately.

"He's fine."

"Oh my God." Angela burst into tears and Hodgins sank down next to her, putting one arm firmly around her and her clenched arms, the other taking Brennan's hand in mute thanks. She let him squeeze her fingers for a minute before pulling away, realizing her palm ached from her mother's black and white striped ring was cutting into her skin.

"I'm going to see Booth," she told the room in general, and walked for the door hands in her pockets to realize she still had on her lab coat. She grabbed a fresh pair of gloves on the way out. She was halfway to the door at the far end of the lab, but she turned sharply at the sharp pattering sounds.

"Can I come?" Parker asked breathlessly.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Your father and I are working." She stopped both physically and verbally at the words; she had never before used diction that could be confused with a marriage. She sounded as if she were addressing Parker as her own son. He must have thought so too because his usually charming smile curdled into recalcitrance.

"What's going on? Don't baby me."

"I would never do that seeing as you are not in an infantile stage of your life." For some reason this made Parker smile. She didn't understand men, even little ones.

"What's going on?" he demanded again.

"There's a murder victim downstairs." Parker lost his tan.

"What?"

"Angela said she found a murder victim downstairs."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that someone killed-"

"No I mean, for us? Does that mean he's here?"

"Or she, but yes, that could be a possibility." Parker suddenly gripped her hand so tightly he punctured a tiny hole in the latex with his nail.

"Don't leave me okay?"

"What?"

"Can I just stay close to you?"

"I think you should wait with Angela and Hodgins. I don't think your father would appreciate me allowing you to accompany me to a crime scene." There. She had done it again. Referred to Booth as the father of a child clinging to her.

"Will you walk back with me to Angela and Hodgins?" Brennan was impatient.

"Parker it's thirty feet."

"Do you have a gun?"

"What? No."

"Well then I think you should walk with me to keep me safe."

"You're being irrational." But his big eyes pleaded with her until she sighed, turned around and walked him back to the door. He barely let go of her hand until he latched onto Angela's arm in a few sprinted steps.

"I'm sorry Parker," she said softly. She had never wanted to instill this sort of fear in a child, and especially not Booth's.

"Brennan." Behind her. It was Booth. She whirled anyway, though her brain had informed her that he was not dangerous. It was strange that he didn't call her Bones.

"What did you find?" she gasped. "Was it any of the security guards, was it-" he cut her off with a glower towards his son cowering on the couch.

"Maybe we should talk outside."

"I already know Dad," Parker called, relaxing so completely it melted Brennan's heart to see his utter faith that his father could protect him from anything. It wasn't like religion, or anything ridiculous. It was as Hodgins said. She too, had faith in Booth. He would protect them at any cost.

"It's not anything," Booth said abruptly.

"What?" Angela stood up, still clutching her son. "What do you mean it's nothing?" Booth shrugged, apologetic but still firm.

"There's nothing down there Angela."

"No. There is there _is_ someone down there. I saw him." Booth looked uncomfortable going head to head with a friend, especially when Hodgins stood as well, not defensively, but in bewilderment, not sure who to believe.

"Come see for yourself. I can't find anything."

"All right," Brennan shrugged. She was willing to follow Booth anywhere. She swallowed; she was forgetting herself and what they had been through. She was too willing to pretend those weeks of agony had never happened.

"Can I come too Dad?" She expected Booth to say no, but was surprised when he said yes.

"There's nothing down there bud. I think Angela just got a little spooked."

"No, there was someone," she insisted, but followed him regardless, not afraid of anything.

Together they traipsed downstairs. Angela, fearless as ever, still dug nail marks in Brennan's arm, which made her wince. Hodgins, at least, was holding the baby.

They descended the last few steps, Parker likewise lingering behind his father's legs to…

Nothing.

Limbo looked just as Brennan had left it. Spotless. Clean. Too bright.

"Are you sure Booth?" Angela said in bewilderment. "Maybe they just moved it down the rows…" she took a few faltering steps, staggering around as if she were, to Brennan's mind, inebriated. Her partner shrugged and for an instant she could see the lines of the shoulder holster he wore beneath his snug jacket. It suited him, the overt masculinity. It was attractive. Brennan bit her tongue and thought back to this morning; she definitely needed sexual stimulation at this point if she was noticing Booth's _jacket_.

"Look Ange, I looked everywhere. All the way down each row, all the way to the end. I scoured the floor for blood, I –"

"You didn't actually scour the floors," Brennan corrected. "I believe you mean that you searched the floors with unusual intensity and attention to detail."

"Yeah," Booth said impatiently. "Anyways, sorry Angela, there's nothing here."

"Are you sure?" she squeaked.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"But…I'm not crazy. I know what I saw."

"Look, the best I can do," Booth said, not unkindly, "is have you draw up a sketch of him later and I'll look into it okay? But for now, let's get out of this place. Gives me the creeps."

Angela shuddered her agreement. Brennan snapped off her gloves as if she were scoffing at them instead of having sprinted up the stairs not hours before.

As they walked back up the stairs, Parker took the steps two at a time to squirm up next to her side.

"So Bones," he said cheerfully, his reticence gone in the face of some silly imagined delirium on Angela's part. "Are you riding in our car?"

She hated that she had to look over at Booth for permission. His face, likewise, was pained at her indecision.

"Yes of course," she said when Booth tensed a tight smile of an invitation that wasn't usually needed.

"Great!" Parker grinned. "I've been practicing."

* * *

><p>Brennan couldn't remember the last time she had eaten peanut butter and jelly on a Sunday evening in the park. Or done either of those things separately, come to think of it. She smiled while Michael gurgled happily in her lap and she kept one arm wrapped around his middle both to keep him from toppling onto his face and to reassure herself he was still there, a teddy bear complex.<p>

"We're going to go on a walk," Angela said, standing up and dusting herself off and gracefully reaching for her son, dipping low towards Brennan.

"Stay here," she breathed to her before straightening with one of her biggest smiles that left her teeth glinting whitely. "Anyone want to come?" Brennan frowned. Why would Angela ask her to stay? She supposed she wanted time with her family.

"I'm okay," Booth said comfortably. "Parks?"

"Bones are you going?" he asked with a dimpled smile. Brennan didn't catch Angela's gaze but shook her head resolutely.

"I think I'll stay here."

"Yeah me too," Parker agreed.

"Great!" beamed Angela too quickly. "Come on Jack."

"Uh…okay," Hodgins said amiably, not catching to his wife's game but good naturedly going along with it.

They strapped Michael in the stroller while Booth mutely offered Brennan another handful of pretzels from the bag. She delicately took some.

"Okay see you in a while," Angela called cheerfully and began to push the stroller briskly away, leaving Hodgins to jog the first few steps to catch up.

"What's going on?" Brennan heard him hiss, but couldn't catch Angela's response.

She was luckily saved from even a moment of awkwardness by a blast of sound from Parker who had her iPhone in his hands and was already setting up music.

"Parker!" Booth managed to be scandalized but didn't quite pull it off with his tugging smile.

"It's okay," Parker said, hand out to his father and a serious expression on his face. "Bones said it was." His eyes begged her to agree.

"Of course," she agreed complacently. Booth quirked an eyebrow.

"Just ask next time bud, okay? Even if she is okay with it," he warned.

"Good advice." The words slipped out of her mouth and she instantly wished she could snatch them before the malleus, incus and stapes in his ear could translate them into sound waves. He smiled, a little puzzled, before the snide remark caught up with his understanding and he blushed a little, loosening his shirt collar, even though it was just a tshirt.

"I deserved that," he muttered. His acknowledging it shamed her. She turned her face away to pick at a tiny thread coming out of the blanket as Parker toyed with something.

"Okay guys," he said with a wicked smile. "Are you ready for this?"

"Yes," Booth grinned. Brennan couldn't fight off the smile and turned her eyes up from the blanket to exchange a tight smile with Booth.

"Go Parker!" she cheered. Although Parker turned a little pink on the tops of his ears, he also didn't tell her to stop.

He turned his back to them and started the music, quickly setting the phone on the grass and took a few steps away before spinning in time with the beat.

Although he missed many of the steps and wasn't quite in syncopation with the rhythm Brennan could perceive that stemmed from some sort of Jamaican percussion, he was very good, especially for a ten year old boy.

"Nice," Booth said with a glimmer of a smile when it became evident that Parker's sweaty curls had stopped moving in his dance pattern.

"Glad you think so Dad," Parker said with a big smile, "because that's only part of it. I need Bones."

"What?" she asked in astonishment.

"I need the girl for the next part." Booth evidently understood something she didn't because his countenance darkened.

"I don't think so buddy."

"Well how am I supposed to practice?"

"Practice without her."

"I can't!"

"I'm willing to dance Booth," she put in to make Parker feel better.

"No," Booth was being unreasonably mulish for reasons she could not fathom.

"Booth, it's not problem. I can learn whatever Parker wants me to."

"Why don't you dance with her then Dad?" Parker asked reasonably. For some reason it made Booth scowl.

"I don't dance."

Brennan struggled to her feet after so long sitting down.

"It's okay Parker," she consoled him. "You can teach me. Did you know anthropologically speaking many traditions were passed down through teaching? It helps the person who acquires the wisdom learn it more thoroughly."

Parker frowned as he puzzled through that but his expression cleared.

"Yeah that's what my teacher said, that we should show other people our moves and it will help us to remember them better."

"That's what I said," Brennan repeated blankly. Parker wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes. Brennan blushed but stood next to Parker and he started the music but quickly paused it.

"Okay it's right – no – move your right foot – yeah like that – and then back behind with your left – and whoa!" Parker grabbed her hand as she wobbled in the cross legged position. Booth bounded up.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled. "I'll dance, but mostly just to make sure Bones doesn't hurt herself." Brennan couldn't help the tiny smile that was born at the corners of her mouth. He had called her Bones. He hitched his jeans up with a little bounce in place and stood next to her while Parker scooted in front of them, looking back over his shoulder.

"It's okay Bones, you don't have to stand like that. The moves go really fast so you won't fall over."

"Let's hope," muttered Booth. Brennan swatted him a little more forcefully than usual.

"Just because your son is charming does not fix everything," she whispered to him. His smile hitched a little but simultaneously grew cheekier with the concession that Parker was having some effect on her.

"Okay so with the down beat it's-"

"With the what?" Brennan interrupted.

"You know," Booth interpreted for her, wiggling his hand up and down in front of her face. "Duh dum, duh dum. The _down_ beat."

"The stressed syllable?"

"The dum?"

"Yes."

"Then yeah."

"So like iambic pentameter. One stressed and one unstressed syllable." Parker stared at her with a vaguely offensive frown on his face scattered with confusion and frustration.

"Yeah. Like that."

"Okay. I understand."

"Great," Parker enthused, spinning away from them again and talking to the grass. "So on the downbeat you stomp your right foot, cross the left, two stomps right, forward back, and then this is called the cha-cha and you crisscross and cha-cha side to side. Got it?" Brennan and Booth exchanged a glance.

"No."

"Not at all." They smiled a little at their unintentional unison.

"Okay," sighed Parker, patting his forehead in frustration. "Let's take it from the top."

"The top of what?" Brennan asked.

* * *

><p>When Angela and Hodgins rounded the corner they were very surprised to find the tension that had been polluting their picnic between Booth in Brennan, despite the gorgeous sunset, was rolling in the grass with both of them.<p>

"Oh my God," Angela gasped with a huge smile on her face.

"Your skills are spooky," Hodgins shook his head. "Props though."

"Mad skills," Angela agreed.

"What's going on?" Hodgins asked as they edged nearer.

"Booth is teaching me something called _grinding_," Brennan said, looking up from underneath her hair. For some reason, Booth flushed scarlet and sputtered.

"I wasn't teaching her! Parker! Parker was…." He couldn't finish around Parker's laughing and Angela's adjoining giggles. "Yeah, yeah, it's all fun and games."

"I was having fun," Brennan said blandly.

"Bones was really shaking it by the end!" Parker chirped.

"Parker," Booth warned.

"What Dad?" Brennan also turned expectantly for his unusual behavior. Booth flushed and muttered.

"Maybe talk about it later."

"And I think it's getting late," Angela said firmly. "Michael fell asleep three blocks back."

"And Parks it's getting near your bedtime."

"Dad!" Parker immediately whined, mortified. "I'm not tired!"

"Not yet," he glowered. "But wait until you shower. You'll drop off to sleep."

"I will not!" Parker continued to whine. "Come on Dad! Five more minutes dancing! Please?"

"Car," Booth barked, and Parker knew that tone as well as Brennan. He slunk off with a hanging head after muttering an ungracious thank you as he handed Brennan her phone back.

"You shouldn't be so hard on him," Brennan said quietly. "We all had a good time."

"Don't tell me how to raise my son," snapped Booth. He stormed off as Brennan wilted a little before straightening, fixing her stoicism in place before turning around to face Angela and Hodgins. They didn't buy it one whit.

Angela's face was so pitying that Brennan had to turn away. Hodgins put a hand on her arm.

"Come on, we'll drive you home."

"No," Brennan shook her head, her eyes burning uncharacteristically. "I'm fine."

"Come on Brennan, don't be ridiculous," Angela snapped, as cranky as her son at the bitterness emanating from Booth.

"Bones?" Parker had run back to get her. "Dad says the car is leaving."

"Brennan?" Angela asked, tilting her car keys. Brennan stood torn between the two, knowing which person she should go with – the friend that was being nice and whom she should had imposed upon for breakfast – or the partner with whom she was trying to repair bridges. Or was it mend bridges? She didn't understand idiomatic expressions.

"I," she cleared her throat. Parker tugged on her hand, even though he was ten now, and not four.

"Come on Bones," begged Parker.

"I…" she said and started walking with an apologetic look to Angela. Angela slumped with defeat.

"It's okay sweetie," she said quietly. "I understand."

"Finally," Booth grumbled when she opened the door. She hesitated and stared at the ground before looking back over the field where Angela and Hodgins were cleaning up. "What?" Booth asked angrily.

"Nothing," she said quietly and he stopped mid word before saying anything else. His face grew craggy and hurt the way that she hated. She picked at one cuticle and thought rationally that this was like newton's law of motion, that all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. Booth had betrayed her trust and hurt her by reading her quasi-diary, she had hurt him by her silent hostility, and now he was hurting her with his own hurt. The vicious cycle never ended, she mused.

She sighed when a bead of blood welled up in a crevice of one too long nail. She needed to cut and trim them. Perhaps that was what she would do when she got home. She ran a long finger over an eyebrow. She could also tweeze her eyebrows and dust her apartment. She didn't have a television, she had read all of the books on her "to do" shelf in the weeks of self imposed isolation, and she had nothing better to do than groom herself and tidy up. _What does that leave for tomorrow?_ Her mind snidely remarked. Brennan sucked her thumb with the faintly nauseating copper tang on her tongue and panicked. Maybe she should ration. She could clean today and pluck her eyebrows tomorrow. How long could she take plucking her eyebrows? Would it take up the four hours before she could go to bed? Maybe she should go to the bookstore. But that was taxing because in the stores most of the employees accosted her, recognizing her from shelving her books.

"Penny for your thoughts," Booth offered unexpectedly, his voice shifted abruptly in the silence of the last five minutes. Brennan blushed at how exceedingly unoriginal her thoughts were and fisted her still smarting hand into the other and shoved them between her thighs. She noticed her jeans had grass stains on them.

Booth looked over with a faint frown. "Or not?" he asked quizzically.

"It's nothing, really," she assured him. His face darkened, a tornado storming across it.

"I see."

"No really, Booth, it's nothing."

"Fine, think what you want."

"No it was _nothing_," she nodded earnestly.

"Hmm." He had actually grunted at her, like an animal.

"I was thinking about if I should clean my apartment or cut my fingernails, okay?" Booth's face cleared immediately as he chuckled.

"Seriously?" Brennan crossed her arms and legs and looked out the window.

"Oh Bones, you were killin' me," Booth sputtered around his laughs. She leaned her head against the seat back.

"I'm sorry I worried you."

"Well why don't you read one of the books you're always saying you never have time for?"

She noticed he didn't invite her home with him and Parker as he usually would have.

"I finished."

"All of them?" his voice went up in pitch. Sweets told her that indicated surprise. She finally turned her face back to him.

"Yes." She realized she was being too bland. Sweets said it made it hard for others to engage her in conversation. Booth had never had that problem, she reflected. But Booth couldn't seem to think of what to say.

"Oh."

"Yes," she repeated.

"Well I would go with cleaning. You don't have _anything_ to read?" It hit them both at the same time and Brennan wondered if her stricken face matched his. He angrily curled newfound claws around the steering wheel and she turned her face back towards the window.

There was a letter on her kitchen table; it had been delivered to her home address.

"Here is fine Booth," she said after a few minutes of silence that Parker was oblivious to as he played some sort of hand held gaming device with a very serious grimace on his face. "You don't have to par-" She trailed off as Booth pulled into his typical parking space. She knew without asking he wasn't getting out. She opened the door and spoke stiffly.

"Thank you."

"Sure," he mumbled, still staring straight ahead at the building. At the last possible second he caught her glance as she closed the door, but then a layer of glass separated them. _Poetic_, her snide voice commented.

Upstairs she did manage to cut her fingernails and finally dust all the figurines that Booth had run his keycard over so many months ago. But there was really no avoiding it. She shook it out.

_Letter to a Sister_

She wasn't surprised that Russ had sent it here.

_Dear Joy,_

Joy? Brennan raised her eyebrows as her esophagus swelled without her permission.

_You were my sister once. I never looked for you after you left and Temperance came into my life. One day I was Kyle, and you were a ferociously happy toddler, four years younger than me but no less my best friend. Then the next day Dad shook me so hard it loosened up a baby tooth that had barely started wiggling. He told me I was no longer Kyle, and you were no longer Joy. Mom and Dad had new names and asked me if I understood. I nodded. And poof, like a magic trick_ _you disappeared._

Brennan had some difficulty breathing through her inflamed trachea.

_Tempe, you said you idolized me, but I adored you. There are many memories I have that you are too young to remember. When I left and I know I did, I went west. I ended up in the Midwestern states for a while, bumming around places like Montana and Oklahoma, but I had these pictures – they're included- that I kept with me. I looked at them everyday, sometimes even more than once a day. There were days when I missed you, missed our family, so badly that I would just sit in my motel room and stare out the window, just holding them. _

Brennan couldn't help but open up the envelope and take a brief glance at the top one before tucking it back under the letter to stare at the pictures later.

_I know I screwed up. I was nineteen Tempe; you've got to understand that. You were so scared after Mom and Dad left that you kept asking me all these questions. You asked where they were, when they were coming home, whether I thought they were dead, whether dying hurt. _

Brennan did not remember asking any of those questions. She was shocked at herself.

_I know you didn't mean to scare me; you were fifteen years old – barely. You had just turned fifteen a few months before. You were in your first year of high school. Every day you would come home and ask these questions as we ate out of fast food bags. Neither of us knew how to cook, or knew how to live by ourselves. I got scared, Tempe. You scared me and I'm ashamed of it, but every day, every question was one more stone in my head, filling me up with heavy things inside and confusion, and I began to doubt. We loved each other, but you were so quiet. I wondered if you hated me, if asking those questions was the way you were screaming that it was my fault._

Brennan frowned, taking in a sharp breath. She had never thought that.

_And by the time I had convinced myself otherwise, I realized my car was on the freeway one day while you were at school instead of on my way to my construction job. There wasn't a lot of employment for a kid who didn't go to college. I never wanted that to be you. I started thinking as I drove. I figured it wouldn't kill me to drive all day and then turn around and drive back. I swear I didn't realize I wouldn't turn around._

Brennan reached up to cover her mouth. Her fingertips touched wet skin.

_I started thinking about how crappy everything was, how stupid I was, how stupid Mom and Dad were, mostly how stupid it all was. I started thinking about how I didn't have a real job. I knew how smart you were Tempe; I never wanted that to be you. But I had never applied to college. How was I supposed to get you there?_

_Then panic really set in. I didn't know what immunizations you needed for school. I didn't know how to become the executor for Mom and Dad's will. I didn't know how to pack a lunch. I didn't know how to buy an apartment, or go clothes shopping with you, or do any of the things you would need. All I could think about was how much you needed an adult, and how I wasn't one. I think it was then, I slowly realized, that I couldn't drive back._

_I knew social services would pick you up if I called, and all I could think of when I used that payphone at the truck stop in West Virginia was that someone was coming to get you; someone would take you in who knew how to raise a kid. Someone who was an adult. I was still a kid, a scared shitless kid. And then I realized I couldn't go back because I had already broken your heart, even though you hadn't come home from school. You would hate me. I couldn't give you to someone, give you away, and then hang around and pretend it was fine._

But you could have, Brennan wanted to whimper. It would have been better, knowing Russ was in her corner.

_Tempe, you were beautiful and smart. I never thought you'd have any trouble fitting in at school or starting a new life. You were nothing if not adaptable, always taking to new classes without a hitch, never finding it problematic to be good at anything you turned your hand to. You thought I was good at everything…Jesus. I just did all those things so you wouldn't overshadow me. Pretty stupid, huh? Didn't really work out. _

Brennan moved her fingertips up to pull at the corners of her eyes, trying to tighten them over her cheekbones to keep them from dripping. Her nose sniffled of its own accord. She angrily ignored it.

_I can't believe in your letter…and I can't believe it was written such a short time ago…but you thought you were a robin? Tempe I work construction! How can you not see yourself?_

She closed her eyes against the tight stretching of her eyelids. _I am the only one who can see myself_, she thought. An ugly flash of Booth's surprised face as he fell into the slick shower made her wince, even though no one was there to see.

_I didn't realize Tempe, I swear I didn't, what would happen to you when I left, or what you would go through._

Brennan felt a lip curl. _Really?_ She disliked how similar Russ' apology was to her father's. They hadn't thought their actions through. They had been selfish, misguided. If they had only _asked_ her, she could have told them as much. They had shut her out of their lives and made their own decisions without thinking that their decisions might affect those around them. She had been a _daughter_, a _sister_, part of a family. And family shared things. If one person hurt, everyone hurt.

Her sneer broke with a little breathless sob.

She was an idiot.

She had done the same thing.

It was as she had told Booth before; she had simply repeated her family's mistakes over and over again. People had shut her out, and so she shut them out. They had left, and so had she. She wasn't so exceptional after all. Booth had fought, and she had stood by and watched.

Fingertips touched wet skin.

_I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry that I was, and still am, such a screw up. I never asked why Mom and Dad called you Temperance, when your name was Joy. You are withdrawn, when you used to be happy. Your name changed you, as our life changed. That little girl is gone, and I miss her._

_I'm right here_, Brennan wanted to say. She couldn't. Her skin stretched. Her grimace turned into welling self loathing.

_I'm sorry I wasn't your hero, Tempe. I wasn't the hero of anyone's story, not even my own._

_I love you, and I'm glad you answered that call on your birthday after you found Mom. Our lives have been tragic, but we're turning them around. I have Amy, and you have Booth._

_Let's never make our kids say "They left." _

_I love you Tempe, even as I miss Joy._

_All my love,_

_Russ_

Brennan put down the letter, and the pictures, and ran to her bedroom, her heart pounding as it had in Limbo. She hid under her covers, and dreamed of the sea breaking against her rocking body.


	7. Because I Have You

**Happy Holidays! You know what you can all get me? Reviews! Yay! (Is that shameless? I feel a little shameless.)**

* * *

><p>Cam was exhausted. She had slept for four hours the night before for no particular reason at all. One minute she was watching a movie with Michelle until midnight, and then she showered and dressed for bed and it was one o'clock, and then tossed in her bed until past 2:07, which was the last time she had glanced the clock before mentally running through the ABC's of U.S. cities. It always worked; she had never finished, but she had been worried because she had gotten to P for Pasadena before getting stuck on Q for so long she suspected her brain had given up out of sheer boredom than actual acquiescence to being tired.<p>

The day had been unexpectedly brutal, more so, she suspected, from Daisy being the intern on rotation than the actual case. It didn't lessen the fact she had been up to her elbows for nearly six hours in brains. This one wasn't put together, which was upsetting and complicated her autopsy. As soon as she had walked out of the lab, Michelle had wanted to go to a concert and Cam had fought her until Michelle had beaten her into submission with the agreement that she would be home by midnight and take another stab at college apps, something Cam had been trying to motivate her to do for so long now it made her head hurt. And then Paul had called to cancel their date. Again. Surprise, surprise.

So when she opened her door to her house with a flustered jangle of her keys and stared nonplussed at the dead man spread out over her couch, she didn't run screaming from the house the way a normal person would.

"Well fuck," she fumed.

She dropped her purse and keys by the door before going over to see what new little hell karma had dropped into her life. _Is this about the smoking?_ She asked silently, _because this is enough to get me to stop_, _just end this ridiculous day, _she beseeched.

He had been dead a while, at least three days. It was evident from the bloating and the lack of blood oozing from the congealed wound. In a few hours he was going to start to stink, and she had just bought this rug.

"Wonderful," she muttered and went to change into something less messy and to call Seeley.

She had just changed into sweats and was walking back out cell phone in hand when she froze. The body was gone.

"The fu-" she caught her breath. She wasn't insane or hallucinating from exhaustion. For one thing, she wasn't nearly sleep deprived enough, and for the second, there was a distinct lingering smell in the air of formaldehyde and it wasn't just coming from her hair.

She realized, very slowly, as she patiently backed her heels against the wall so that nothing could startle her from behind, that the killer was in her house. He was playing mind games. Or he had just conveniently stashed the body somewhere. She swallowed and timidly approached the large cabinet that held the tv, stretching her hand out before realizing how stupid she was being. She turned and fled back to her room, yanking her nightstand drawer open and loading her gun. Something out of the corner of her eye made her turn her face glacially.

Her bathroom. She went slowly, gun first, pacing with the careful cop steps she hadn't used for a long time before yelping.

The man was lounging in her shower, his dead bluish limbs hanging over the rim of her tub.

"Come out," she shouted. It came out sounding half hysterical. "I know you're here so come out." Nothing stirred. The dead man's glassy eyes were blue once but were now filmed milky white. He met her gaze unflinchingly. She did not.

"Come out!" she screamed, waving her gun from the mirror to the shower. The shower had a glass door, so she knew no one was in there with the body. She turned to the toilet quickly, agilely. She kicked open the laundry hamper, opened her closet one handed. "Very funny you creep! Come out!"

The bathroom was empty. She paced back into her bedroom.

"I'm a cop!" she shouted. It wasn't technically true, but she didn't care at the moment. "So just come out and we can talk about it."

She dropped to her stomach and pointed the gun under her bed. Dust bunnies cheerfully greeted her, making her cough. She wiggled out, more wigged out than she had originally been and spun around to check behind her. She was paranoid. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see the dead man in her tub.

"It's okay," she said carefully. "I'm not going to shoot." She carefully turned both hands up, but kept her right forefinger on the trigger.

"I get it," she shouted, not sure where he would be. "You didn't kill him. It's just a practical joke. Maybe you just needed somewhere to put him." She was unaware of Angela's scare in limbo.

"Let's just get it on the table. It's not a problem. You picked a good house. Do you want to come out now?"

She waited for an interminable moment, actually thinking she had gotten to him. Nothing and no one answered.

She walked, gun still held carefully up the hallway back to the kitchen to find her phone to inform Booth.

She screamed.

The corpse was now sitting on her couch, its stiff limbs crunched painfully into an off kilter "casual" slump. As she watched, the television suddenly turned on. She jumped and spun around, two hands crossing on her gun.

"Come out!" she shouted. "Come out! This is not funny anymore. Get your ass out here!"

Nothing. She turned back to the dead man watching tv and backed into the kitchen by memory and grabbed her phone. Her fingers met a crevice. She glanced at it in panic.

The battery was missing.

Proof, at least to one part of her relieved mind, that she wasn't insane.

She snatched up the kitchen phone. It at least, worked, but she couldn't remember for the life of her Booth's number.

She started inching for the door.

It was obviously better to just leave. She glanced at the clock. Only 8:45. She kept inching but something more froze her in place.

Michelle.

Cam couldn't leave the house and leave Michelle to walk into a killer's lair and find a dead body in her house.

She scrambled to call her before realizing she didn't know her daughter's number by memory. _If I get out of this_ – she thought, and declined to think of the word 'alive' at the end of it, - _I will learn everyone's number by memory. I swear it. _She wondered if Michelle had an address book with her friends' numbers in it. If she could call one of them – even just their house – then she could ask for Michelle's number. It was a long shot, but it was all she could think of so she could warn Michelle away. She slid one foot after the other down the hall, back pressed against the wall, not sure where he was.

She pushed open the door to Michelle's room and screamed again. She shot twice without thinking.

She didn't know how, but the body had been moved in the minute she had been in the hallway. It now sat grotesquely in front of the vanity, its face refracted back at her in the three-fold mirror from every angle.

She backed away. The bullet holes in the neck of the corpse didn't even ooze.

She was trapped.

* * *

><p>The Founding Fathers was packed tonight. Booth glumly noted this as he drank his cold beer. There was nothing quite like beer from the tap; it just tasted so much <em>better<em>.

"Hey man," said a familiar voice, but Booth still turned to check if it was Hodgins regardless. It was.

"Hey," Booth nodded.

"Anyone sitting here?" Booth shrugged and swiped his jacket from the barstool beside him. He was pretty sure who he was saving it for wasn't coming.

"Nope."

"Haven't seen you around," Hodgins said conversationally. Booth made a face.

"Can we just not talk like that?"

"Like what?" his blue eyes were ingenuous.

"Like we're about to be serious about the fight Brennan and I are in."

"Oh. That."

"Look, we're fixing it okay?" He flexed his shoulders and curled both his hands around his glass. "It just takes time. It just…takes Bones time."

"Right." Hodgins wisely didn't speak after that for a few minutes as he ordered a drink.

Booth's phone rang.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hodgins heard him say. Booth made a frustrated face.

"Sorry, no, you can't –" He was silent again, listening. "Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, Camille Saroyan. I get it. Yeah I'll take the charges." Hodgins felt his light eyebrows go suddenly dark in his blanched face.

Booth frowned into the phone as the extension line from 411 information was patched through.

"Seeley?" Even Hodgins could hear the loud, half screamed voice. It sounded nothing like Cam.

"Camille?" She didn't bother to correct him, which worried him a lot more than he could say. He listened in silence.

"Are you sure?"

A scream of unarticulated frustration came through loud and clear and Hodgins coughed into his own beer.

"Okay. Look. I've got Hodgins with me. Stay where you are. We're coming to get you."

"Okay. No, bye." He hung up and Hodgins stared at him.

"Cam's drunk," he said in answer to his friend's curious gaze. Hodgins made a face.

"Really?"

"It happens," Booth sighed, running his fingers through his hair as he stood, leaving a few dollars on the bar.

"_Really?"_ Hodgins asked again.

"When she was younger," Booth answered shortly. He turned away and Hodgins had to struggle to force his arm through the sleeve of his coat as he ran after him.

"Where are we going?"

"To her house. She thinks there's someone trying to kill her."

"Is she usually paranoid when she drinks?" Booth paused at his car, keys already out. He frowned.

"Actually, no. She's just the opposite. Always getting into trouble." He shook his head, as if clearing water out of his ears. "Or at least she used to be."

"So why was she screaming?"

"Screaming and crying," Booth grunted as he slung himself into the driver's seat.

"I'll follow," Hodgins said quickly. Booth raised his eyebrows. Hodgins ran.

When they pulled into her driveway not ten minutes later, Booth tensed as he opened his door. He knew the sound of gunshots when he heard it. Hodgins came around the back of his car.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah. Here." Booth shoved a pistol from the small of his back at Hodgins who looked surprised.

"What do I do with this?"

"Try not to die," Booth answered curtly.

"Yessir," Hodgins answered smartly before Booth's glower made him mutter an apology.

Booth popped the trunk of his suv before lifting out the bottom of it and hauling out his sniper case. He assembled the weapon in less than ten seconds, to Hodgins' inarticulate awe.

He pulled it sharply to his shoulder, sighting it, and then put it back down to load it.

"Let's go," he mouthed and made three sharp hand gestures that Hodgins shrugged at.

"This way," he hissed. "Shoot anything that's not Cam or Michelle."

"Okay," Hodgins squeaked. "Man this just got real."

"Like you said. It's not like Cam to be hysterical."

"No," Hodgins breathed, not sure Booth could hear him with their soft footsteps scraping lightly as they moved up to the front door, "it's not like Cam to have emotions at all." Booth's ears were better than he had accounted for because a dark chuckle answered him as he stalked forward with his rifle.

Booth had a strange sense of humor.

In one sharp movement, Booth motioned for Hodgins turned the door handle and he trained his scope through the door. He gave one jerky chin up nod and Hodgins turned the handle and kicked the door open.

Three shots happened so fast Hodgins wasn't sure what had happened, but he saw that Booth had his stomach to the floor in an instant, his sniper rifle still trained forward. Hodgins flattened himself to the outside wall, feeling cowardly but still wanting to go home to his son.

"God damn it Camille!" Booth bellowed. "Will you quit shooting at us?" Hodgins peeked around the doorframe and couldn't help but laughing, even in the face of everything.

Cam sat on the top of her television cabinet, the highest point in the room, her back against the wall and her legs tucked in front of her abdomen and most vital organs. In one hand she held a half empty bottle of tequila and in the other she held a gun.

"Sorry," she squeaked and set the gun down quickly.

"Where is he?" Booth spoke normally but moved quickly through the room, breathing 'clear' behind him to Hodgins who followed, trying his best just to hold his gun straight. Cam shrugged, and burst into tears.

"Hodgins, with me," Booth barked. Hodgins stopped wavering, his initial instinct to go over and help his boss and friend down.

Booth paced at a quick soldier's clip down the hall, kicking open doors, swinging the rifle quickly back and forth. Hodgins would see his stomach suck in, his finger tighten infinitesimally before Booth would call 'clear' in each room.

He went through each room, but stopped both in Michelle's and Cam's to sniff the air before touching his fingers to things Hodgins couldn't see. This however, was his area of expertise. He moved forward. He caught the odor Booth was breathing and crouched down.

"Formaldehyde," he breathed. Booth shook his head.

"Whoever it was isn't here," he sighed. "Unless he's hiding somewhere."

"You think Cam is okay?"

"Well she wasn't hallucinating," Booth rumbled and stalked back down the hall. Hodgins followed and turned the corner. Cam still sat shivering on top of her tv cabinet. He could see dust in her jet black hair, cobwebs clinging to her temples. He decided not to mention spiders; Cam didn't like them.

"He's gone," Booth murmured. Cam shook her head.

"I don't believe you," she hiccupped.

"How full was that bottle before you got to it?" Booth asked wisely. Cam looked down at it in surprise.

"All the way," she slurred.

"Can you even see straight?" Hodgins blurted; Booth shot him a glare over his shoulder. Both of his arms were still stretched straight up in the air for Cam to jump down into.

"No," she confessed.

"How did you get up there anyway?" Booth grunted, holding both sides of the cabinet.

"I climbed," she whispered. Hodgins blinked back at Booth. There were no visible means of getting up there.

"You climbed?"

"I jumped off the couch." Cam was slowly unwinding her legs and slithering over the edge of the tv cabinet. Booth caught her ankles and was taking her weight.

Hodgins glanced at the couch. It was at least four feet away. She would have had to pull her entire dead weight up by her arms. He didn't even ask how she had done it with tequila and a gun in hand. Her Halloween costume of catwoman was more apt than he had first suspected. With an ungraceful clatter, Cam finally fell the rest of the way, tackling Booth to the ground with a hard _umph_ noise as he tried to wheeze his next breath.

"Start from the beginning," he commanded, when he could speak. Cam helped him to his feet as she staggered on her own. Hodgins caught her by the elbow but she shook him off.

"Wait," she breathed and grasped the cabinet handle. She pulled.

Hodgins yelled as a body tumbled out, cracking its head painfully against an expensive looking coffee table. If it hadn't been dead before, it was now.

"He left it here," she muttered, and went to sit down on the chair.

"Wonderful," Booth groaned.

"Holy crap," was all Hodgins could manage.

"I knew it was going to be a long night," Cam sighed shakily, finally putting her gun on the table next to her.

"Would you like some coffee?" Hodgins offered, with raised eyebrows. He was going to have a lot of apologizing to do to Angela for thinking she had imagined something like this.

"Yes please," she sighed before thunking her swollen, tear stained face against her knees.

"I'm going to have to call Bones on this one, aren't I?" Booth groaned.

Sirens whooped outside.

"Someone must have heard the shots," Cam sighed as Hodgins rooted around in her kitchen. Without even looking she corrected, "top right cabinet, two over from the fridge." He found the mugs.

"I hate the cops," Booth muttered, laying down his sniper rifle and going to answer the door.

"This is going to get ugly," Cam agreed.

* * *

><p>Brennan groaned under the covers when she heard her cell ring.<p>

"No," she grumbled, sticking a hand out into the freezing night air. It was still fall, but it felt like winter in her apartment since she hadn't taken the time to turn up the thermostat during her flee to bed after Russ' letter. She felt ashamed of her own stupidity and squinted at the very bright screen of the phone. It was Booth. She blearily glanced at the top bar to check the time: a little past midnight. _What_ could he possibly want? Unless he was drunk. It was very satisfying to click the ignore button and shove it under her pillow.

It rang again, a vibrating buzz under her left ear. She grunted in a very unfeminine way.

She glanced again at the screen. Of course. She ignored him.

By the third call she was both simultaneously irked and worried. Either he was too drunk to drive, or he was already in trouble.

"Brennan," she answered, as if it was a routine call on the job. She bit her tongue to keep the levels of spite she felt towards him at a minimum.

"I'm at Cam's. There's been a situation." Brennan shot up in bed, still in the clothes she had come home in.

"What's wrong?"

"You know that body in Limbo Angela claimed to have seen?"

"Yes, but it wasn't there."

"Well it's here."

"There?"

"Yeah. Here. We found it."

"It was never lost, Booth, because it didn't exist. You said it was a figment of Angela's imagination."

"Well I was wrong," he said shortly. "She wasn't imagining things. The body is here, in Cam's house. Someone's been playing mind games." Brennan was hyper aware of the barely concealed growl in his voice.

"What do you need?"

"I need you to get over here!" he all but shouted.

"I meant equipment wise," she said patiently, already finger combing her hair and sliding one arm into the jacket by the door as she tripped out of her bedroom. The kitchen lights blinded her.

"Oh," his voice was tense with an apology. "I need a forensic spec."

"Spec?"

"I need the basics, squint stuff." She knew he only resorted to calling her and the lab squints when he was his most cop-ish self. That meant it had gone badly. She bit her tongue to keep it tame.

"Diagnostics?"

"You know, Ziploc bags. Gloves."

"Tell her I'll need my kit," Cam's voice floated through the end of the phone.

"Oh you're not in any condition to do anything," Booth growled.

"Routine body find, I could do it in my sleep," she argued back. Brennan canted her head as she fastened the buttons of her coat one handed, the phone pressed to her shoulder as she groped for her keys. She swung open the door.

"It's not a routine find," Booth sniped back. There was an incoherent buzz of a walkie talkie.

"The police are there?" Brennan asked in surprise.

"You would not believe what is going on," Booth groaned. "Call up Sweets, I need him to vouch for me. And Hacker."

"What?"

"I don't have my badge, there were shots fired, and now everybody is sitting around thinking I'm the creep with the body. Hey! Don't touch that. My people are better than your people." Brennan listened patiently to the fight as she started her car before interrupting.

"Do you want me to swing by your office and get your badge?"

"No, my badge is in my car. If they would just let me get out there-" A string of curses followed what she assumed to be an attempt to leave.

"I'm going to hang up now," she informed him as he bellowed. She knew he couldn't hear her. "I'll be by as soon as I can."

She hung up to his screams of outrage and dialed Sweets.

* * *

><p>Sweets beat her to the scene; by the time she was there, there were four police cruisers parked out front and Booth was in an all out scream down with a terrified looking but attractive police officer holding a note pad. Sweets was between them trying to mediate.<p>

"What's going on?" she asked, sidling up next to Booth and ducking under one of his wildly gesticulating arms.

"You're D-Dr. Brennan," the young woman stuttered, and Booth appeared to be so flummoxed he stopped shouting. "I-I've read all your books. You're amazing."

"Thank you," she said slightly awkwardly. "This is my partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth. I believe he left his badge in the car-"

"Because I was trying to help Cam! She called me and said there was a killer in her house and I didn't have time to –"

"Would you mind," Brennan spoke firmly over him to the impressionable young officer who had stopped taking notes, "letting him go over to his car and finding his ID? I'm sure he'll let you escort him there."

"Of course," the woman graciously agreed, though she was barely five foot four and Booth looked smugly down at her as if he knew he could quash her like an ant if he so chose.

"That's what I've been trying-" Sweets started, but threw up his hands in defeat as they moved away, Booth suddenly amicable now that he was getting his way.

Brennan moved into the house, equipment in hand. Cam was in one of those itchy blankets the paramedics always had draped around people; Booth called them shock blankets since he said everyone in them was usually in shock. Cam didn't look to be in shock. Brennan watched clinically as she doubled over and threw up all over the paramedic's shoes. The poor guy looked positively green at the gills and Brennan knew he had to be new on the job.

She placed the boxes of equipment tidily by the wall of the kitchen where Hodgins stood rocking slightly back and forth, fists under his armpits and his blue eyes huge. Brennan passed him without a word and found the biggest baking bowl she could before coming to Cam's side.

"Here," she said quietly. Cam looked absolutely miserable.

"I'm sorry," she was saying over and over to the paramedic who was futilely scraping more of the muck into the carpet. "I'm so sorry. This usually never happens. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Brennan said, patting her awkwardly. The small motions caused Cam to bury her head into the newfound bowl Brennan had placed in her arms and retch.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. Brennan had seen the body, but said nothing.

"It's okay," she said stiltedly once again. "I'm sure you didn't mean to."

"I'll be okay in a few minutes," Cam assured her with a drunken slur that didn't do her speech any favors. "Then I'll get to work."

"Maybe you should lie down."

"I can't," wailed Cam. "I have to change all the sheets."

"The sheets?" Brennan asked in bafflement. Cam shook her head violently.

"I need to clean this house from top to bottom. So unsanitary. Michelle's room- Michelle!" she gasped.

"Would you like me to call her?" Brennan asked.

"I don't have her number," Cam wailed and dissolved into tears. Brennan looked back at Hodgins. She felt that _he_ should be wearing the shock blanket. But it wasn't the body he was staring at with the avid look of horrified fascination, but at Cam, sobbing into her baking bowl of vomit. It was like he had never seen her before.

"Does anyone have Michelle's number?"

"Who?" a voice called from the crowd.

"Her daughter," Brennan said exasperatedly. "Michelle Weldon? Anyone?"

"I got it." The speaker was Booth, who was armed again and his very shiny badge clipped to his belt visibly for everyone to see. Cam burst into another round of sobbing and Brennan felt it wise to take a step away from her inebriated coworker.

"Could you call her?" Brennan said pointedly.

"And tell her what?"

"Not to come home!" Cam snapped, inserting herself into the conversation. Brennan abdicated her position next to Cam as Booth came around the coffee table, blithely stepping over the body with as little regard as the fallen throw pillow next to him.

"Hey Cam, you look…" and she stared up at him weakly from underneath greasy bangs.

"Bad," she finished hoarsely. "I'm aware. I'm hoping that if I drink enough, this will all be a horrible blur. Or even better, a black out."

"And when's the last time you've ever blacked out while drinking?" If Brennan didn't know better, she would have sworn Booth was teasing. She glanced under her armpit at them while she reached for the equipment case and opened it to put on gloves. The two were both smiling weakly at each other as if they were the only people in the room. Cam's face was filled with a feverish sort of desperate loneliness that Brennan wasn't used to seeing in her shut off expressions. It made her ache how deeply Booth loved his family, and how little family Cam had.

She motioned for Hodgins and he dropped to a crouch to join her.

"They look pretty happy, don't they?"

"No," Brennan shrugged. "Cam is vomiting and Booth just finished terrorizing a police woman, and while that gives him short term vindictive joy, he'll feel guilty about it later." Hodgins shook his head.

"What do you want?"

"Start cordoning off the corpse so people like Booth don't tramp through the evidence."

"Well Cam said he's been moved a bunch of times…"

"Ask her where the body's been and then see if anything's left in those places. Get CSU to help you out there; that's probably not as important."

"Sure, sure. Do you mind if I call Angela?"

"Why?" Brennan asked bluntly. "She's not needed. The face is still intact; the kill is only a few days old."

"Right…" Hodgins blinked at her. "I was actually going to call her because she's my wife." Brennan blinked back at him until he continued his explanation. "And so I'd like to tell her why I'm not coming home and that she isn't crazy for thinking she saw someone in Limbo."

"Oh." Brennan frowned. She hadn't thought of that. She tilted her head to the side, considering, but Hodgins was already gone, not waiting for her approval. She realized it had been more of courtesy to ask than actual obedience to her seniority.

"What can I do?" Sweets was pale but determined. He usually wasn't around too many of the remains, and hardly ever around any that actually looked human. He was taking it well, all things considered.

"Take care of Cam. Booth has more important duties." Sweets gave her an odd, pitying look.

"No he doesn't," he said softly. Brennan scowled.

"He has to question the neighbors, find any witnesses and look for the ballistics team. They haven't arrived yet."

Sweets gave her another pitying look at laid a hand heavily on her shoulder before pushing himself up and walking away. She twitched the offending scapulae and returned to her work.

* * *

><p>It all ended up at the lab, of course. Brennan could see it shining under the fluorescents on the forensic platform. Cam was there, bent over the body, preparing to move it for an autopsy. Brennan glanced at the clock. It was five in the morning.<p>

It had been a long night, but no one's could have been as long as Cam's. She had eventually sobered up, and after comforting herself that Michelle would stay at a friend's house and was completely oblivious to her foster mother's hysteria, she had set to work. Since the body was in a state of hardly any decomposition and had been introduced to formaldehyde, there was little for Brennan to do until Cam finished her initial examination and a more thorough autopsy. Although she looked haggard and exhausted, she had jumped into the emergency shower in her office – to Brennan's secret but unmentioned disapproval – and changed into one of her zip up field uniforms and a plastic apron with goggles in preparation for using the bone saw.

Brennan turned back to her charts, exhausted even by her own work ethic. Although Booth and Hodgins had both gone home to their respective sons – and Parker was back home safely with Rebecca – Brennan had failed to see the logic in going home, sleeping for only a few hours, and coming back to the lab. It was better to finish all of it while it was still fresh in her mind and then retreating back to her bed for some much needed sleep. She realized in an hour it would be the 24 hour mark of how long she had been awake. She hazarded that if she could go home by lunch, that wouldn't be too much of a strain; only a 30 hour work day.

There was, however, a problem. She had just finished up her lab charts, but the rest of Cam's work hadn't been introduced yet. She was in a lull, but it was too short of a time to go home, shower, change and still have time to sleep. She was contemplating sleeping on her couch, but she knew she would wake up groggy and more exhausted than she had been previously. She needed something to do.

Invariably the bright letterbox caught her eye.

No.

She resolutely turned her eye to her computer screen, but the light was giving her a headache. But she refused to be so weak as that. Then a thought niggled into her brain: why fight it?

Seriously, why? The letters were meant to be read, by her, at this point in her life. The recipients knew that. She knew that. She was just bothered by the fact she and Booth were so similar. Her stomach plummeted, on its own roller coaster. But that was wrong. She and Booth weren't similar at all. He fought, and she acquiesced. She was running away from the letters, just as she had run away from everything in her life. She pretended she was afraid of nothing; she had faced down mobsters, genocide victims, foreign governments and killers, but she was deluding herself. She was afraid of everything.

She slowly came around the edge of her desk and opened the letterbox from the bottom. She dipped her hand in, as Booth had invariably done in her life, and pulled out a letter.

_June 17__th__, 2005_

She frowned. That couldn't be right. These letters were supposed to be current.

_Dear Dr. Brennan, _

_Although you write extremely well, but I'm sorry to have to say that on the basis of that one highly distinguishing quality alone I cannot make you an offer for the novel. _

_The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim crime cases become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book is, eventually, unreadable. The whole is so dry and airless, so lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have had is entirely dissipated by what does seem, a great deal of the time, to be extraneous material. Your characters seem to have no vivacity or life, and I regret to inform you that we cannot make you an offer for your manuscript at this time. _

_My thanks nonetheless for having thought of us. The manuscript of __Bred In The Bone__ is returned herewith._

_ Yours sincerely, _

_Tracy Herman. Executive Editor._

Brennan felt her throat catch. This was her first rejection letter, or rather a copy of it kept somewhere in the files. It had been excruciating to read the first time, especially with the casual cruelty of it, but reading it a second time in light of all she had accomplished was not as entertaining as she thought it would have been. In fact, it wounded her more than she was prepared for.

Underneath the signature were four words:

_I am so sorry._

She was hyperaware now, of Angela's contributions to her books. This only escalated that awareness into a painful rippling she could almost feel all over her skin. Her intricate plotlines and realistic forensics had nothing to do with the story. The editors hadn't even deemed her worthy of taking a chance on until she had gone to Angela that first time and asked for advice. She hadn't realized it was Angela's additions that had launched her into the literary world then; now that knowledge burned within her. She had given Angela a check to assuage her guilt, but she realized now that she wasn't the real author. Angela was. She felt disgust so thick it welled up between her teeth like too much popcorn and she shivered. Piqued, she actually picked up her laptop and threw it across her office, hearing the satisfying clatter as it hit the floor. It was probably fine. And if it wasn't, it wasn't like she couldn't afford another one.

Suddenly Brennan felt so unbearably lonely she couldn't speak past the lump in her throat. Was this all there was? Although she had never been discontent with her lot in life as a world renowned scientist and author, she realized she had very little she truly cared about. The inane oft repeated platitude of 'money can't buy happiness' had never rung so truly before. Work wouldn't sustain her forever. Her characters didn't even belong to her. Without Angela, their world was flat.

Without Booth, hers was.

She sank down onto her couch and wrapped herself tightly in her blanket.

Cam knocked gingerly on her doorframe and she said "come in" dully without looking around. Cam frowned at her hesitantly.

"Are you okay? I heard something fall." Brennan didn't mean to say it, but it fell numbly from her frozen lips.

"Why am I always alone?"

Cam froze coming around the couch and gave her the same look both Hodgins and Sweets had already given her that day. Or was it yesterday? She couldn't remember. Cam didn't say anything, but she said down next to her on the couch and squeezed her arm.

It was enough.

"I found something," she finally heard Cam say. Brennan opened her eyes. She was lying down, still ensconed in the blanket. She didn't remember drifting off. The clock across the room told her it was closer to 7 than she remembered.

"What?" she mumbled, trying to free an arm to rub her eyes. Cam was bloody up to the elbows, a specter of death. Tiny drops of blood spattered her goggles. Brennan felt herself wake more fully. Cam looked down at her, mouth grim.

"It's the wrong body."


	8. Oh Lord, Where Are You?

**So it turns out I was fighting TOO hard for it not to happen. I didn't want it to happen guys...but it did. It happened. Curious? Read on. Review. It will develop over multiple chapters, so writer's block? Oh it's demolished. It's just not where I thought the story was headed at all. Looks like Booth + Brennan = too stubborn for me to handle. **

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><p>"What do you mean, it's the wrong body?" Brennan asked blankly. Cam shrugged and rubbed the side of her face on her shoulder, carefully holding her bloody hands in front of her.<p>

"Well, I remember shooting at the body because it scared me. I hit it in the neck. Twice."

"And?"

"And the corpse on my table didn't die from being shot."

"You said the corpse was already…a corpse."

"You know what I mean," Cam gestured impatiently. Brennan leaned back, slightly disgusted with so much of the blood still fresh on Cam's gloves and hoped she wouldn't splatter on her couch.

"No," she said slowly, squinting one eye, "I don't."

"The corpse in the autopsy room hasn't been shot."

"What?" Brennan sat up more quickly, wide awake now. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I searched everywhere, thinking maybe I missed the mark, but there were no bullet holes in Michelle's room, and I am positive I shot it because my gun cartridge is missing several rounds that can't be accounted for in my triple crown molding in the living room." Brennan felt her mouth draw down.

"You shot at Booth," she accused.

"I did," Cam said evenly, not hesitating. Her gaze didn't flinch away from Brennan's, even though she felt her gaze cooling to its iciest. She was prepared for this fight, Brennan realized, knowing that she was prepared for Brennan's completely misplaced wrath. Brennan felt sick to her stomach with loneliness and grief. Cam had been victimized and stalked today, drank to the point of vomiting, and had been hysterical with fear and she still had more composure and grace in the face of Booth's transgressions than Brennan did. Brennan wanted to curl back up and go to sleep but felt that her face was too hot to put it back on the cold side of her pillow.

"You could have killed him," she accused, but it was weak and they both heard it.

"I know."

"I'm sorry," Brennan whispered. Cam's face crumpled with confusion and an empathy Brennan couldn't quite grasp.

"What?"

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

"Why, because it's your fault?" Brennan gaped at Cam's accusation. Cam dropped fluidly into a crouch peeling off her gloves with a horrible suctioning slap, her face horrified.

"That's not what I meant. I was asking if you thought it was but-"

"But it didn't sound like that," Brennan stated, her voice the evenly chilled one now.

"It's just that of everyone's past…yours is the most…colorful…" Cam suggested delicately.

"You think this has to do with me." Cam said nothing. Brennan nodded, her eyebrows pinching her skin so hard she wanted to rub them but was afraid if she did she'd find tears perching precariously on her waterproof mascara. "Do you think," Brennan started but stopped, sucking her bottom lip in, a not foreign thought occurring to her. "Do you think…it's the letters? A response to the letters being sent out?"

"No," Cam said immediately. "No, no, of course not. Of course not. Booth was just doing the right thing."

"You think Booth did the right thing?" Brennan asked in shock.

"Oh boy," Cam gulped, "I jumped into the wrong fight. What I meant was… that he was just trying to…to fix it the best way he knew how."

"Did you tell him to do this?" Brennan challenged. For a moment wild hope bloomed in her chest. It wasn't Booth. It wasn't his fault at all; he trusted his best friend just as he trusted her. If Cam had known… It was much easier to be mad at Cam. She wasn't everything to Brennan…she wasn't….she just wasn't Booth.

Brennan could live with this. She could feel her face heating, her teeth grinding, her hands clenching with her lungs and she expected to see Cam's body responding in the ancient and inevitable kinesics of bodily aggression. Hostility was bred into the homo sapien species in its battle for dominance and Brennan's challenge was unmistakable, so she was surprised to see Cam's face, although it flickered quickly, fade into sadness. Brennan felt her heart squeeze regretfully with a sort of disappointed self loathing.

"No," Cam said quietly. "I didn't." She laid a hand on Brennan's arm and Brennan flinched because she knew her friend was telling her the truth. "I'm sorry. I know that would have been easier. But Booth did this himself."

Brennan didn't mean to let her face fall quite as hard as it did, but it nearly broke in half judging by Cam's shiny overbright eyes.

"I didn't want this to happen," she whispered. "I shouldn't have written the letters. I should have kept my mouth shut." Cam laughed in a way that suggested she was laughing the way Booth sometimes laughed at God, eyes tilted towards the ceiling, hand wiping her mouth.

"You did, Brennan," she reminded her, "You never said anything. It's why you had to write the letters."

"I didn't have to." Brennan felt herself breathing too fast. Why was this happening? Where was Booth? Why couldn't they be dancing together now? Why was there a body in another room, another one, because of her? Why were people always in trouble because of _her?_ No one was ever hurting because of Cam, or because of Angela, or because of Hodgins. They were so much better at being _people_. Brennan swallowed too hard and made an ugly little sound and had to look away in embarrassment.

"You did have to," Cam said firmly. "You're only human."

"I shouldn't have written those goddamn letters," Brennan said again, but this time the tears came out with her regret, and she dropped them with her head into one hand. "This is my fault. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Cam."

It hadn't been Cam who had almost killed Booth, it was only she who had been holding the gun.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," someone was repeating the words over and over while Brennan hugged herself, both glad and desperate that Cam wasn't hugging her, glad because she was covered in blood and brains and also because they weren't terribly close. But she was so desperately in pain that she would have taken any contact at all, yet she had to make do with her own fingers wrapping into her forearms.

And then he was there.

She didn't know how long she had been so lonely. She was sure it had only been a few minutes of loose self control and self abrasive bruises, but she was equally as sure it had been months since he had last been so there for her. She hadn't heard him come in, or speak to Cam, or known if she had been crying out loud this time when she cried so often inside.

He came from behind, an avalanche of desperation equal to her own. It was more than comforting; it was slaking. It wasn't an apology. It wasn't a fix all. It was desperation, a seeking for the connection that she had been missing since their drunken night together, their picnic, of Parker teaching them to dance, and for long before. He wrapped his arms around her, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows almost strangling her from over the back of the couch first and she crooked her face into the crook of his arm, feeling her breathing suddenly get easier within one quickened sob, one deeper, more broken, more healing, more raw grief driven breath as she felt her eyelashes squeeze against his too hot skin. And he tumbled over the back of the couch in a football tumble dragging her down with him until they were curled together, nested together. She apologized again, and he ground his teeth until she dug her nails into his skin and he winced. She huffed a laugh and realized now she didn't need to cry. She caught her breath when she felt his shirt collar. She half expected to find a bullet hole, even though she knew Cam had missed by feet.

"I'm okay," he rumbled.

"I'm not," she whispered. Her own honesty shocked her.

"What are you doing here?" he smiled into her hair knowing the answer before she chimed it.

"Working," she admitted. She squirmed out from his grasp, suddenly flustered and sat up, pulling her cardigan straight, checking her hair in the glossy coffee table, looking anywhere but at him. She so desperately needed him, but could hardly meet his gaze.

"Cam said we have the wrong-"

"-the wrong corpse, yes," she finished for him.

"That's not good."

"That's rather an understatement," she offered dryly.

"I want you to come home." He said it so evenly, so blandly, she wasn't quite sure if she had heard him correctly and so continued blithely stacking her sheaf of papers at her desk, her belt cutting into her skin under her ribcage. She wondered when she had last eaten. Was it that campbell's vegetable soup? That was only 80 calories. Her sides ached. She tried to think of that reason instead of the more obvious one as he continued speaking. She kept her voice modulated.

"What?"

"I said I want you to come home." Brennan, as an anthropologist, was hyperaware of semantics. She knew Booth hadn't said 'I want you to come home _with me_.' He had said 'come home' as if that denoted something else entirely.

"I'm not sure I grasp your meaning." She refused to say 'I don't know what that means.' She didn't want to play these games with him These age old games of their old phrases. It hurt.

"The lab misses you." He kept using that same low, calm voice and she suddenly realized where she recognized it from; he used it when we was addressing shock victims. She pounded the edges of her stack of papers more viciously against the table.

"I am always here. I hardly ever leave," she scoffed, but her voice was too high, too unrecognizable. She felt like she was in foster care again and he had that unreal quality of when the parents were waiting at the kitchen table and she knew with a sinking heart that they were about to tell her it wasn't going to work out.

Because it wasn't working.

She knew that; honestly, how long did she really think she could keep hiding behind the charts in her hands and pretended that her friends – her family – the people she ran to at six in the morning and mailed her diary to – wouldn't run after her? How could she shut them out effectively and expect them to sit quietly? They deserved better.

She slammed the edges of the charts on the edge of her desk to get the corners straight; they wouldn't all line up perfectly but Booth kept talking. She kept slamming, but she could hear him nonetheless over the noise despite his low voice.

"Brennan. I sent the letters for a reason. You have to open them. You have to talk to us. You have to open them." He repeated it purposefully, also purposefully not saying, she noted as she carefully opened the binder chads and tried to refold the files to lay flat, 'you have to open up.'

She shuddered and shook it off and stood the charts back up, refilled and let them filter between her hands, ready to be stacked neatly again. She slammed them down a first time.

"Stop it." He said it quietly.

"I can't be alone anymore," she told her desk. "I can't go home. So I stay here." She slapped the folders, frustrated with their bent edges that she had created with her sloppiness. He wasn't at her apartment anymore. He wasn't at Founding Father's anymore. She had told Hodgins the truth. She was going crazy with the hole she had torn in her own life. Booth had punched it through her, like a hole punch on the chart, but she had ripped it away. She stacked the papers viciously.

"Stop it," he said again, rising to a half crouch from the cushions. She froze, angry and tense. "We are here for you. We just don't know _how_ to be."

"Maybe I don't know how either." She gritted her teeth and slammed the folders down.

"Stop it," his voice was heating, growing more frustrated. He came up behind her and grabbed the pile; they were dinged up at the corners from her frustrations. He threw them across the room. She squeaked in anger. She had needed those. They lay broken at the spine, open to the world. "Maybe we should ask someone to match us up. Tell us how to act towards one another." With nothing to do, Brennan spun around defensively, chin jutting forward, hands thrust outwards. She meant to grab her own elbows but accidentally shoved him just the tiniest bit, rocking Booth on his heels and he tilted back forward into her space. She ground her jaw at the intrusion at the murderous look in his eyes.

"You need to come home," he growled. "You're hurting this family."

"You're saying we need to talk to Gordon-Gordon."

"I'm saying _you_ need to talk to someone because_ we _are trying to offer help and you don't trust us enough to take it."

"Are you saying I have trust issues?" she challenged, and realized that her grip had fisted itself into his jacket lapels. His jaw had ground outwards as well, his eyes blazing.

"Let's just say," he smirked, "that they go a lot deeper than me."

"Are you calling me a _foster kid_?" she hissed. Their skin was so flushed that the air between them was an even ninety degrees.

"I'm saying you need to stop trying to file everything into a letter and make it neat."

"You think life is messy?"

"Oh Bones," Booth growled. "I know life is messy."

Their lips crashed together too fast to keep track and Booth's hands, which had been irritatingly clamped in his jacket pockets, snagged in her hair. Her hands, already gripped onto his jacket, pulled him toward her, and he toward himself and they warred, Booth winning with his greater weight. They pulled apart for a gasp of air enough for Brennan to gasp:

"Don't call me Bones," before Booth's tongue smashed into hers and stifled anything else she had to say. She could feel the adrenaline from the gunfight earlier pulsing through his veins and exciting her hormones. She pushed away but he pulled her back. She scratched his neck and he bit her ear. They were violent and rough, like life had been to them.

They broke apart like guilty teenagers when they heard the door rattle open, the blinds clinking. Cam smiled apologetically, her latte skin burning with mortification at the intrusion.

"Sorry to interrupt but Caroline is here to talk to you Booth." Booth wiped his hand roughly over his cheeks and looked at his wrist, which didn't have a watch on it.

"What time is it?"

"Roughly a quarter past eight."

"Bones," he barked at her, disregarding everything she had just said, that they had just been through. "I'll be back in an hour. Then we'll go see Wyatt. You with me?" She nodded in a numb haze and he turned and strode away. She was slightly irked she had so little affect on him until she laughed aloud when she watched him walk headfirst into an instrument cart.

She sat, and sighed. One hour. She didn't fight it this time; she knew what would fill an hour's time so very perfectly.

Her fingers trembled when she saw the salutation and understood the return address.

_Dearest Temperance_

_ I was flattered you wrote to me, but I guess I always knew before I asked that you wouldn't come. That day on the dock, when I saw you walking towards me, my heart leapt in my throat but my head whispered, 'you idiot, she didn't bring any bags.' Even you Temperance, an extraordinary woman, would have brought some baggage._

Brennan didn't miss the double entendre.

_People never figure me much for a poet, but I figure I surprise a lot of people. _Brennan took the chance to gasp a laugh, but her heart was fluttering faster than her fingers, desperately keeping the page flattened onto her desk. _But my favorite is e. e. cummings, mostly for his style, for his ballsy way of telling the world he didn't need to fit the pentameter they thought his words should go, his life should go. And he said, just very quickly, at one time, with one line_

_ "existing's tricky: but to live's a gift."_

_That's kinda been my philosophy, I guess ever since I read that in high school at the ripe old rage of seventeen. I was impressionable, I suppose. I wasn't looking to rebel against my folks or anything but he struck a chord: but to live – to really live – now that's a gift. _

_It's not like I meant to take six years to finish college or anything. And I kept blowing all my money on cooking classes and cattle roping and ridiculous adventures that drove my parents crazy but hey – life's a gift, right? And I bought this boat and you were this beautiful sexy woman who saw me as a gift the way I saw her. I would have spent the rest of my life trying to make your life as wonderful as you could have wanted, I promise you that._

"And I believe you," she whispered very quietly, her eyes filling sweetly, but Booth's teeth still lingering on her lips.

_ But I knew what I saw, even though your letter denies it, even though I denied it, even though Booth denied it. The whole damn department saw. I was just a stand in for Booth, and your letter from seven years ago – well it just proves it even more. And if you two haven't gotten together by now – well I'm just going to have to come up there and slap you silly._

Brennan laughed.

_ I asked Booth to his face if it was okay and he said yes. But he shrugged and looked upset and I knew better. But goddamn Temperance you were so beautiful, and I was so selfish. You only live once…but you said no. And I should have known better. I did know better. Booth loved you…loves you. _

Brennan broke again for the third time that morning, covering her mouth with her hand, feeling her teeth with the pads of her fingers, biting them to stifle her sobs so as not to attract attention. She was an idiot. Booth was right. Damn him. Damn Cam. Damn everyone. She hated that she was so broken that a man a thousand miles away could see it.

Why could she only exist? e. e. cummings was right. Existing was tricky.

_I'm such an idiot._

"I know the feeling," Brennan muttered.

_I will always care for you Temperance. But as for loving you, I will leave that to Booth. That ship has (literally) sailed._ She laughed again, a watery little laugh, at his puns. She had missed that.

_I thought seriously for a while about being ordained as a minister just so I could say "You have my blessing" and it be taken with literary performative utterance. _She shook her head and laughed outright as the line continued_. But then I wouldn't be able to have as much sex as I like to have. And if you remember, I like sex a lot. _

_ A lot._

_ All the best,_

_ And good luck!_

_ Your biggest fan_

_ -Sully_

"Are you _crying_ or laughing?" Booth accused as he skulked in her doorway. She let the letter fall at last from her fingertips and hurriedly wiped her cheeks. She turned away to smile out the window, pressing her lips together.

"Both, I think. Aren't you early? That was hardly twenty minutes!"

"Yeah, well, Caroline was very anxious to get rid of me. Apparently, I get on her nerves."

"I said," Caroline corrected drolly, passing by outside her office, swinging a briefcase and twisting a very large black ring, " that when you shout at me cherie, you get on my nerves."

"Ah," Brennan smiled.

"Who was the letter from?" Booth asked bluntly.

"Sully," Brennan answered; his countenance darkened as she gathered her keys. "You ready to go?" Cam stopped in the doorway but now backed away from Booth carefully.

"Where are you two going?" she asked carefully.

"To see Dr. Wyatt," Brennan answered when it became apparent that Booth was not going to. Cam's face flashed something quick that Brennan couldn't grasp but that made Booth stalk quickly from the room. She followed him. Cam sighed and reached into her federal blue pants pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She pushed a few buttons and held it carefully to her face.

"Angela?" she said a few seconds later. "Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. You won't even believe this morning."


	9. Do Not Forget Me Here

**This chapter doesn't have a letter but that's because of Gordon-Gordon. But we all love him :) Review! **

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><p>It was blistering. The heat from the kitchen hit like a roiling wave tamping down on them. Brennan staggered back a step and Booth caught her elbow out of force of habit rather than out of what she suspected was genuine affection for he immediately let go with a muttered apology when she yanked it away. Wyatt was wearing a ridiculous white hat that didn't disguise the fact that his forehead was shining with sweat, his hair slicked down with moisture, stuck to his temples, as he bustled from stovetop to stovetop, carrying a spoon in front of him genially barking orders.<p>

Brennan was worried he hadn't seen them at first, and she and Booth stood awkwardly in a hurricane of fluttering food as sous chefs and waiters danced around them with brunches and early lunch orders, bringing tiny wafts of cool air with them. She thought about shrugging out of her coat but felt too tightly wound to move and so stood stiffly, Booth half a frozen step behind her. They stared straight ahead, not sure how to attract Wyatt's attention as he whisked past them not twice but three times. She needn't have worried however. As distracted as he appeared, nothing ever escaped his noticed, and Brennan chided herself for forgetting such an intrinsic part of his nature. She was really rather better at people than that.

"I'll be with you in a moment Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan," he finally murmured to them, wiping his hands after accidentally dipping the side of it in an iced cinnamon roll on a rag before skating past them for a fifth time, leaving them to further irritate the rest of the kitchen with their dumfounded inertia. He tsked and cleared his throat while he brisked a filet, turning it expertly over a stove flame while glancing up at them, eyebrows raised.

"I can't be expected to keep consulting for the FBI whenever you so desire," he shouted, his British accent slightly skewed over the hiss of steam as someone spilled soup into the fire and a great gout of smoke passed between them. "I do have a job you know."

"We know," was all Brennan could think of to say. She wanted to fall that extra half step back into Booth and bury her face into his jacket in shame. She couldn't. She felt so tired suddenly, so immensely tired, and her face sagged with it. She tilted her chin up and stuck it out a little more, keeping her façade strong. She couldn't lose her control in the midst of Wyatt's workplace. It would be as if he brought something personal of his to her lab. Unprofessional and unappreciated.

Wyatt immediately dropped the steak he was sautéing and snapped at another chef to attend to it. He began to wipe his hands before snatching the hat from his damp hair, leaving it to stick out at odd angles. His face looked lined with age, older than Brennan had ever remembered seeing it before, which struck her as odd, because faces could not look older; he was just as old as he had ever been, despite the average rate of aging.

"Why don't we go for some coffee then?" he said to them as he walked up, towering over her with his stature. She smiled tightly but mostly at his buttons, the level her eyes could reach on his shirt.

"Yeah," Booth said, and his voice sounded as tight as her smile felt from somewhere behind her scapulae. "Sounds good. We're really sorry doc-"

"Chef-"

"Gordon-Gordon, but…this isn't FBI business."

"Yes," Wyatt said seriously, grabbing a fedora from a hat stand and covering his hair as he shrugged into a brown trench coat. "I can see that."

"We came as friends," Booth offered more quietly. Brennan looked away as a pain so acute went through her middle she almost doubled over as she stepped off the curb. Booth caught her elbow again as she pressed her lips together in second long anguish before blinking and shaking him off with a quick, falsely grateful smile. Wyatt blinked slowly at them. She didn't return either of their gazes. Wyatt heaved a huge sigh.

"Oh no," Wyatt rumbled sonorously. Booth's face went blank with a sharp sort of terrifying clarity. She had only seen the expression a few times before: it was a brief kind of shocking agony. It had come when she had turned down his offer of a relationship at the monuments, and again when Hannah had said no when he had asked her to marry him. But before Brennan could pull him abruptly around and ask him what was wrong, Wyatt was herding her – pushing her forcefully – into a coffee shop. It wasn't the Founding Fathers, but it was like enough that they all automatically moved to a table in the back by the window.

They sat in a painful sort of clattering of crashes. Brennan fell into her seat arms first. Booth threw himself into his desperately, and Wyatt sank into his, white faced. All his years of a psychiatrist looked to be failing him now.

"What?" Brennan finally blurted.

"He told you," Wyatt said, very softly. Booth was clutching the table's edge so viciously his knuckles matched the saltshaker. He yanked his eyes left then right at a painful, jerky angle.

"I couldn't." Wyatt's face crumpled to match the napkin next to the half open menu.

"You let her discover it on her own." Brennan finally understood.

"You knew?" she gasped. "You _knew_?"

"He came to me in confidence," Wyatt pleaded quietly, his hands flat on the table in contrast to Booth's still trying to crack it in half. "He needed advice."

"That was the picnic?" She touched her hand to her head but it quickly slid down her jaw to cover her mouth. She turned to Booth, her eyes accusing, her fingers now touching her lips. His own lips tightened. He knew to what she was referring. What had just occurred. "But-" she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I didn't tell anyone else," he answered her unspoken question. "I didn't. But at the end, Brennan, the secret was killing me. I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know what to do. Cam thought I had a gambling problem. She confronted Gordon-Gordon. He confronted me. I tried to tell him that wasn't it, but the signs of addiction – they were all there –" Brennan realized he was rambling. She wanted to tell him he could stop, but she couldn't. She couldn't make herself. She waited for him to go on. He gathered the courage. There was a snap and for a moment she thought he had actually cracked off a piece of the table before realizing it was just him cracking his knuckles. "I had to tell him the truth…and that was it…it was." He ended helplessly, defensively, looking to Wyatt for help.

"What Agent Booth says is the truth," Wyatt corroborated gravely. "Reading the letters…your diary…" Brennan flinched in a shuddery, rippling way that made Wyatt give a low sound of reproach deep in his throat. She shot him a disapproving look.

"It was making him sick. Psychologically and physically." Now it was Booth's turn to make a sound in his throat and shoot Wyatt a look. Neither partner glanced at the other.

"But you both have known about this already, I gather." Wyatt steepled his fingers and waited for them to look at him. It took longer than either of them anticipated. Brennan was a master at feigning interest at passing cars and kept both of them waiting a good thirty seconds before deigning to glance over. Wyatt raised his eyebrows in a mock salute at her graces and Brennan at least had the decency to blush at the table.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I've known for weeks."

"But you are only coming to me now."

"It wasn't pertinent to get you involved," she said coldly, staring at a spot somewhere over his right shoulder. To her right Booth flinched.

"Bones." She suppressed her own flinch at the nickname but kept it under her skin. It fooled neither of sharp eyed companions at the table. She raised her eyebrows.

"He is not a major player in our lives," she answered him, still staring straight ahead. She could feel more than see, Wyatt's blue eyes reading her expression with keen knowledgeable interest.

"Bones."

"What?"

"You're being rude."

"No, Agent Booth, she's being honest. I do not interact with you both on a regular basis. Perhaps she thought it best to work it out amongst yourselves before addressing the public." She could see Booth's sardonic expression out of the corner of her eye. She braced herself for his scathing remark even before he opened his mouth. She could see Wyatt watching her.

"She didn't address anything. She hardly spoke to anyone for weeks. She didn't even confront it or talk about it until a few days ago. She's been running from it." Brennan felt her hackles go up and stiffened her spine. She thrust her jaw out a little more but didn't defend herself. It wasn't as if Booth was wrong.

"And what have you been doing, Agent Booth?" Wyatt's question was unexpected.

"He delivered the letters." Her own voice shocked her. She hadn't meant to speak, and the calm clarity with which she spoke was unexpected, even from her rationale. Both men looked at her with some surprise.

"Excuse me?" Wyatt asked, blinking.

"The letters he read," she had thought she would have sounded faint, confessing her worst nightmares aloud, but instead she just sounded disinterested. "He mailed them to all the people I wrote them to."

"_What?"_ Wyatt literally sat back in his chair and the fedora wobbled precariously on his head before fluttering to the floor as if in a swoon. His matted hair and wide eyes only added to the almost comedic effect of his shock.

"It seemed like the right thing to do," muttered Booth defensively, crossing his arms and jutting his chin out the way he had right before Brennan had drawn her arm back to punch him as if he were expecting Wyatt to sock him in the jaw. Brennan almost put her hand out on his arm, trying to tug it down, to tell the abused little boy who was showing his true colors that no one was going to hit him today, but she stopped herself. She didn't want Wyatt to see. She felt ashamed that she was so ashamed of herself as that. That she couldn't even comfort a hurting little boy.

"And what were the responses?" breathed Wyatt.

"People wrote back," Brennan shrugged carefully, now staring intensely at her cuticles as she twined her fingers together and watched her mothers ring glitter as she twisted it round and round her finger.

"They wrote back?" Wyatt replied just as carefully trying to catch her gaze by tilting his head down. He gave it up as a bad job and instead looked out into traffic, which Brennan appreciated. He really was the only person who had ever made any sense of psychology to her.

"Yes."

There was a beat where both Wyatt and Booth clearly struggled with not asking the obvious question of 'what did they say?' She still knew Booth was listening.

"Were the responses helpful?" Brennan let out a huge gusted breath as torn as the Kansas wind.

"This is the largest problem, I would say," she began.

"Larger than Agent Booth reading the letters?" Wyatt jumped in. Brennan tilted her head to one side and seriously considered it, threading her fingers together and bending them backwards to stretch them. She could tell Booth was holding his breath.

"Yes," she said finally, "because I would have told him, had he asked, almost anything that was in the letters. It was just that he read them that was the most hurtful."

Booth let out a twin Kansas sigh as if she had just thrown that punch he had been waiting for since he was eight years old.

Brennan stared down at her upturned fingertips and frowned thoughtfully.

"I was talking about this with Cam," she began. She saw Booth stiffen and she knew he could read subtextually that this was not when she had been talking at all. His reaction told Wyatt more than her own words could. "I realize now I shouldn't have written these letters to begin with. I have caused so much strife and grief and-" Before she was done with the sentence, both Wyatt and Booth were shaking their heads, one sadly and the other violently.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Booth said flatly, steamrolling anything Wyatt was about to say. His eyebrows went up. "Everybody gets to be human. You just had to write yours down. Hey you're a best selling author. I don't write mine down. So what?"

"So I can't go read your worst moments in life and mail them to everyone you know," Brennan said scathingly. Booth stopped. Wyatt sighed gustily.

"Dr. Brennan, have you ever considered for a moment that you might be human, and as such you needed a release from very stressful moments in your life? Did you ever write letters when you were happy?" Brennan tightened her lips and shook her head, just once.

"So it's unfair to judge your entire life based on a microcosm. This just happened to be akin to if someone judged me based on looking at my song lyrics as my brief stint in my rock and roll phase as Naughty Comet. At one time I felt that I had to write my soul into music, but I hardly believe people would judge me based solely on that. Or if we judged young Dr. Sweets on his years as a teenager pursuing his affinity for the death metal culture? Or Miss Montenegro's art? I'm sure there are some of her paintings she doesn't show to anyone because they represent places in her life that aren't for the public. Everyone keeps a diary of sorts, Dr. Brennan. _How_ we keep that diary reflects who we are. Agent Booth, you said you didn't keep one." Booth puffed up.

"I don't."

"But if I asked you how many men you killed, and on what dates you killed them on, would you be able to tell me?" Booth's face blanched of color. He looked so ill Brennan didn't stop herself this time from grabbing his arm. His quick dark eyed gaze darted to her face in surprise, resurrecting some life back into it. Even Wyatt seemed shocked to the depth the question had rattled Booth.

"How did you know about that?" he whispered hoarsely, leaning forward. "Nobody knows about that."

"We talked about Howard Epps. How many men you'd killed."

"That's it. That's all we talked about. We didn't- we never-"

"Booth?" she said very softly. He glanced at her sidelong.

"Not now Bones."

"Booth?"

"I…" Booth cleared his throat behind his hand and looked out into the cars, squinting very hard. "I was really young. Really, really young. Too young. My first sniper shot by myself. Basic training…was nothing in preparation for this. I don't know what he was…what he did. I was on a hill. I messed up…" Booth coughed into his hand. He refused to look at either Brennan or Wyatt. Brennan felt her breath coming too fast, her heart beating too hard. He didn't have to do this, share so much of himself.

He looked down at the table and rapped his knuckles twice in rapid succession and raised his eyebrows. The gesture was unmistakable.

No one spoke for half a minute.

"July 15th, 1991."

"What?" Brennan asked, glancing up at Booth. He was still staring at the faux wood grain.

"The date. Gordon-Gordon's right. I know all the dates. It was July 15th 1991. I was 22."

Silence reigned triumphant.

"So you think, Dr. Brennan, that the responses to the letters you wrote are actually the largest problem you have to face?" Wyatt steepled his fingers again, but un-crossed them to swoop his fallen fedora off the floor and tip it back on his head.

Brennan shrugged self consciously.

"They cause strife. Tension. All of this does. Booth and I…hardly speak. I – foolishly – cut myself off from the lab, from Angela and Hodgins, from Cam, I…suffered." She frowned as if tasting that word for the first time though it had been her long time companion.

"You suffered for doing something that all humans do; proving you were here. Recording your experience," Wyatt observed.

"But piecing together the aftermath of that discovery," Brennan retaliated, and then bit her lip, tapping it with both interlaced forefingers, "has been…unpleasant." She chose a mild word, a synonym for the word she had in mind: _excruciating._ She thought about Parker, and how easy it was to be around him. No wonder Booth liked having a little boy. He had never suffered. She momentarily wondered if there was a way of preventing him from ever having to do so. She wondered if all parents felt this way. She glanced up under her lashes at Booth. _No,_ her mind whispered to her_, not all parents._

"Something's shifted," Wyatt observed keenly, raising his eyebrows. "Something unexpected." His eyebrows disappeared further into the shadow cast by his hat. "Between you two?"

"There was some lingering animosity," Brennan admitted.

"Or we could just call it hatred," put in Booth with a dredged up drown rat sort of smile.

"Something…" Wyatt made a thrusting motion with his hand as if he were driving a gearshift in a car and clacked his tongue, "…clicked."

They glanced at one another.

"We're not sure," Booth said honestly.

"There are still lingering feelings of resentment." Brennan pursed her lips.

"And shame."

"Anger."

"Regret."

"Loneliness."

"Pain."

"Pain," agreed Brennan. "A lot of pain."

"Wonderful," beamed Wyatt. "Sounds like a solid foundation for a real relationship.

They blinked slowly at him.

"Doc," Booth squinted. "I don't think you're getting what we're saying at all."

"Oh I think I'm quite on the right page. You're relationship has changed because of the letter she wrote to _you_." They exchanged horrified glances. Wyatt paused, tapping his lips with his fingers. "No?"

"That…that was the one letter that never got read," Brennan said quietly.

"Never got read?" echoed Wyatt. "Never got read? Interesting choice of words coming from you Dr. Brennan. The semantics are distinctly foreign coming from you. Never got read. Poor grammar, you are quite surprising."

"What I meant was, he never finished reading –"

"I never started reading-" interrupted Booth hastily.

"Never got read," chuckled Wyatt.

"I don't get why this is so funny," Booth said to Brennan, frowning. She shrugged at him, making a face.

"Neither do I. It was just an unfortunate choice of words on the spur of the moment."

"But don't you see?" asked Wyatt, "you have told me that the words _never got read_ and so now you cannot figure out where you two stand because in actuality they were never _said._ Everything else, in retrospect, seems much less important, am I right? And you Dr. Brennan – you said you would have told Booth _almost anything_ had he asked that was in the letters-"

"Hang on, but I read the other letter to me-" Booth interrupted.

"Oh ho!" Wyatt cried, getting pinker in the face with excitement. "There was another letter to you! Dr. Brennan. How many letters did you write to everyone else?"

"Just one but-"

"Just one but what? And how many letters did you write Agent Booth?"

"Two I think but-"

"Two you think? Interesting and this second letter that you so desperately didn't want him to read, what was so important that you now regret that you want him to know, but don't know how to tell him?"

"What?" Brennan felt her voice grow very, very small.

"That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? Your relationship has changed. New feelings have risen up. You don't know how to treat one another and you admit that you're at the point of trust in your relationship where you would have told him _anything _in those letters _except_ what was in the one that was in his hand when you found him."

"Bones?" Booth's face had a wild, joyful, painful light.

"I don't…" she stammered. Wyatt collapsed suddenly in his blustered rage and stopped, breathing hard. He plucked his hat off his head with one hand and ran his fingers through his hair with the other.

Brennan pinched the bridge of her nose, a habit picked up from Booth and breathed out hard. She smiled sadly and quoted: "I've heard it in the chilliest land, and on the strangest sea; yet never, in extremity, it asked a crumb of me."

"What?" Booth asked.

"Hope," answered Brennan. She gave a strange, queer little laugh and stared out at traffic as if she would like nothing better than to go and play in it. There was an awkward pause before Booth touched her shoulder with a tiny feather light touch and hesitantly asked.

"Who said that?"

"Dickenson," Wyatt rumbled, watching them, beaming at his own carefully knitted handiwork. Brennan smiled slightly and turned in her seat back towards Booth dipping her shoulder squirrely and squirming out from under his warm hand.

"Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me," sighed Wyatt drolly.

"Hey," Booth said with some surprise. "That's pretty good. You should write that down." Brennan exchanged a wry glance with the psychiatrist turned chef.

"Someone already did," Wyatt hemmed, "perhaps you might have heard of him?"

"Oh yeah?" Booth said uncomfortably, crossing his arms, "who's that?"

"Sigmund Freud." Brennan turned away to hide her smile while Wyatt laughed.

"Ha ha," Booth said sourly. "Because Brennan is an author and you were a psychiatrist."

"If it makes you feel better Booth, Freud has largely been discredited," Brennan comforted him.

"So I suggest that you two go," Wyatt flitted his hands at them. "I hope I have been helpful?" The two partners very carefully did _not_ exchange glances.

"I didn't know," Brennan said, very quietly to the top of the table and carefully bending her fingers into her fist, "about…" and she rapped her knuckles twice. Booth's hand seized quickly up and his jaw clenched. She couldn't be sure, but she thought his eyes looked shiny.

"Yeah," he ground out between clenched teeth. "Well. We all have things we're not proud of." Brennan stared out at the window, presenting him with the back of her titan brown hair.

"Yes," she agreed in an almost whisper. "I know."

Wyatt interrupted.

"Yes Agent Booth, but I find that humankind cannot bear too much reality." Booth sighed.

"And I suppose you didn't say that either?" Wyatt beamed. Brennan smiled her special smile at Booth.

"T.S. Eliot," she whispered.

"A favorite of Dr. Brennan's and mine," Wyatt agreed. Booth frowned.

"And what if I said to you, 'Do not remember the former things, or consider things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?' Would you know what that is?" Brennan felt a dull blush begin along her cheekbones as she rifled through her memory.

She shook her head mutely. Booth beamed and turned to Wyatt who smiled beatifically and sighed.

"I believe that's from the book of Isaiah." Booth's face crashed into a thunderous cloud of anger.

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"Well yes," mused Wyatt. "I believe there's a great deal I don't know." Booth rolled his eyes and Brennan averted hers. She knew Booth had been quoting for her.

"Fine then," gusted Booth. "Let's go." He heaved himself to his feet, groaning. Brennan could hear his joints cracking from his inactivity. She realized he must have been sitting in silent tension, muscles frozen, for the entire time they had been sitting there.

"Ah," Wyatt sighed with a real crushed sense of disappointment, "but it's just now eleven. You won't stay for lunch?"

Brennan exchanged a glance with Booth who snorted a loud exasperated sigh and threw out an arm.

"After you chef."


	10. I Cry In Silence

**I've given up fighting my preconceived structure for this story; it is determined to write itself as it will, just as its headstrong cast of characters demands. The letters now will show up where and when they will. If you like this chapter go ahead and review! If you felt meh, then go ahead and lie to me! If you hated this new structure please don't tell me. **

* * *

><p>"Sweetie, can I ask you something?"<p>

"Of course," Brennan muttered, without looking up from her work. They were in one of the exam rooms and there was a skeleton laid out. Angela sat on a stool, twirling idly in front of her computer as she inputted facts and figures at Brennan's distracted directions. She was very full from Wyatt stuffing her.

"Why…" her voice was hesitant and Brennan stiffened her spine at the tone. She knew before Angela finished this was personal. "Why was it okay for Booth to read the letters and then give them away?" Brennan pretended to be frowning at the stamen.

"What?"

"The letters," Angela repeated patiently, not fooled by her friend's seeming disinterest, "when he had finished reading them…he gave them away. He mailed them."

"I said he could," Brennan said perfunctorily, placing the stamen back carefully and picking up a rib instead to mark the curvature. Angela put both her palms flat on the examining table and exhaled.

"Yes I know…but why? _Why_ would you let him give away your diary? Why didn't he just read them and then give them back to you?"

"I didn't want them back," Brennan said calmly, placing the rib back down and taking out a tape measure to lay the yellow tape next to the length of the femur. It was slightly brittle at the top. She tilted her face toward it inquisitively, not meeting her best friend's intense gaze not a foot away where she had come to crouch at eye level, trying desperately to make eye contact. "I told him he could keep them."

"Weren't you angry when he mailed them?"

"No."

"_Why_ though? Brennan – he gave it _away_. Your innermost thoughts. It's one thing to have Booth read it. I mean, we all know what's going on there." Brennan snapped the measuring tape closed with a hissing sound that matched her immediate straightening up. She blinked at Angela.

"What's that supposed to mean?" A sculpted eyebrow rose gracefully.

"Really? That's what you get defensive over? Your and Booth's relationship?" Brennan turned away to exchange the tape measure for a scraper and returned to the femur bone to prepare a slide.

"Why. No. Brennan. Stop working. I'm asking as your friend." Angela grabbed her arm and Brennan had to yank her instrument away at the last second from shaving too deeply. She breathed out hard through her nostrils.

"Ange, I'm not getting any work done."

"I'm asking, Brennan," Angela's eyes were serious, focused. She turned Brennan's stool with her knees and put her hands on her hips before crossing her arms, a deeply concerned expression on her face. Brennan shuffled past her as gracefully as possible to replace the femur.

"I wasn't angry because I didn't care what he did with them."

"So you're not angry that we read them." Angela sounded properly skeptical in Brennan's opinion. She breathed out heavily, reluctant to have the conversation but facing the fact there was no escaping her diligent best friend.

"Your letter was addressed to you, Angela," she said quietly. Another eyebrow met the first. Angela seemed at a loss for words for a moment and Brennan took advantage of the fact to manage to scrape a sliver of bone and place it on the lighted table. She reached for the forceps.

"So what you're saying is that you didn't mind that your diary was mailed out because it was mailed to the right people. You minded because Booth read the ones that weren't for him." Angela was standing in Brennan's way purposefully blocking the instrument tray. Brennan refused to meet her gaze at first but then considered it childish. She capitulated and thrust her jaw outward.

"Yes. I resented that."

"But you didn't resent Booth sending out the letters?" Angela was incredulous. She didn't budge still and Brennan wilted in her chair. Angela placed a hand on hers impulsively. Her skin was warm but she knew her hands were icy. Angela made a non declarative onomonopia; Brennan assured her it was simply because of her poor circulation. It was a genetic trait passed down from her mother.

"Booth…" Brennan sighed heavily. "At first I was angry…but the responses…" Brennan stopped speaking and laced her fingers together. Angela leaned forward impatiently and Brennan held up one finger to tell her friend she needed a moment in which to organize her thoughts. When she began to speak again, it was very slowly but more surely and her tone was lower. "Booth knew from the start that no apology he could ever make would be sufficient." Her voice was dark and rich with undisguised anger. To her surprise Angela pulled back her hand. Her face was blank with shock, and to Brennan's limited knowledge but dim surprise, revulsion. "I hated him. But hate is not strong enough. I abhorred him. But I didn't just abhor him. I couldn't think about anything, it was so…painful." Again, she opted out of using _excruciating._ "So Booth had to devise a stratagem, logically speaking, one which would surprise me. Something unexpected. And I am very smart. I thought I had covered all of the things he could have said or done." Again Brennan paused. Angela moved away now, to the opposite side of the table, and Brennan was finally able to reach for the forceps. She used them to carefully pick up the sliver of bone she had shaved and drop it onto a glass slide. Angela's eyes were so large and dark they swallowed her face, two holes in a shining void. Her mouth, usually so expressive, twitched occasionally, but said nothing.

Brennan looked up from her microscope and met her best friend's gaze. "What he did was the right thing. You asked me why was it okay for him to read them and give them away. It was never okay for him to read them…but he did. And that action is completed and cannot be undone. The subsequent ones are the ones that have changed us the most. Changed me the most."

Angela's breath was the loudest thing in the room; louder by far than Brennan's low, slow and careful words.

"He…" Brennan for the first time faltered and gave the half grin her friend was so used to seeing but hadn't in so long that it startled her at first, "he made me be the person I wanted to be. I wrote these letters but never mailed them. The person I wanted to be would have. Booth…was that extra push. He forced me to be…"

"Better?" asked Angela dryly. Brennan looked up with clear icy blue eyes completely dry but Angela observed she had never seen anyone look like they wanted to cry more.

"Yes," she said simply. "He made me want to be better. But I didn't realize that he would have to see the worst." Angela's mouth finally twitched in both directions into a full fledged smile she couldn't hide.

"Oh sweetie," she sighed. "I can't explain_ everything_ to you." Brennan looked up at her from her microscope again, twisting the second lens focus. She was puzzled and completely sans emotion again.

"I don't know what that means," she said blankly. Angela bit her lip to keep herself from laughing.

"I know you don't. And that's the sad part. But that's what Jack and I have. It's what real friendship is. Real partnership is."

"You and I are friends…" Brennan started with a frown. Angela held up a finger with a sly grin.

"Not that kind of friends." Brennan's eyes widened as she watched Angela complete the gesture. Understanding dawned.

"_Oh_. I see." She put her head back down but it popped back up as quickly as a daisy in spring. "But Booth and I aren't-" She mimicked Angela's crude gesture.

"Oh sweetie," sighed Angela.

"You say that a lot," observed Brennan.

"It's what I say when I can't think of what else to say," Angela answered truthfully. It was Brennan's turn to be taken aback.

"Oh."

"You look tired." Brennan ducked her head and fitted the mask of her eyes back into her microscope to hide the circles lining her cheekbones from Angela. It didn't matter. She knew Angela had already seen them. Very little escaped her notice. Brennan was disquieted to come to the conclusion that most of her friends were shockingly observant whereas she herself was stunningly not so.

"Mmm," was her only comment.

"Don't you sleep?"

"Mmm," she reiterated.

"You should go to bed earlier." Angela's criticisms made her stiffen her spine again. It was deepening the ache between her shoulder blades. The knot of tension there throbbed at night so fiercely she could sometimes barely stretch out her arms.

"I go to bed early enough," she replied tartly.

"Don't you sleep?" Brennan sighed a blustery sigh before trying to bustle past Angela again. She might as well have tried to bustle past the Berlin wall. She stopped up short, their relative height making eye contact almost impossible to avoid. She owned it with a teeth grinding:

"No." Angela's face clouded with thunderous concern, just as she feared it would.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," was Brennan's immediate response, just as it always was before Angela rolled her eyes and she amended it to, "just recent events. They…keep me awake." Her voice was tight with shame. She looked away in disgrace. Angela, wisely, didn't press. She stepped aside and allowed Brennan access to the skull, which she flipped over to stare inside the superorbital cavity. She began firing questions in the form of advice.

"Have you tried Chamomile?"

"Doesn't help."

"Ocean waves?"

"Have to pee."

"Piano music?"

"I can't sleep with music playing."

"Counting sheep?"

"One thousand six hundred and eighty four before I got bored."

"Playing name games, numbers games, geography-"

"I get too worked up, too interested."

"Reading before-"

"No."

"Working on your book-"

"No."

"Breathing exercises?"

"Don't help. I keep feeling like I'm pregnant."

"Yoga?"

"Doesn't help."

"Imaging a garden-"

"I'm allergic to bees."

"A cave-"

"Why would I want to be in a cave?"

"A blank television screen-"

"I can't sustain it."

"What is it," Angela asked finally. "That keeps you awake? What do you think about or see that is keeping your adrenaline pumping?" Brennan, who had been ignoring her in favor of running her fingers in and out of the eyesockets of the skull, almost dropped it, a fact not lost on Angela. She carefully set it back down, mandible first, before picking up a vertebrae and examining it.

"Just images at first," Brennan said very quietly. "When I close my eyes, I see things I don't want to see. And you tell yourself to think of something else, anything else. And your brain laughs. So I think hard of something else – a garden or a tv screen or geography. But then it's worse. It's like PTSD. I'll be thinking of how many things I can think of that start with the letter F in the Founding Fathers (forks, flagons, free drinks, fees) and it'll just flash out of the corner of my eye…"

"What will?" whispered Angela when Brennan sounded like she wouldn't, couldn't, continue. Brennan shook her head, but didn't answer immediately.

"Just memories. The worst memories. The ones you would lock away deep inside of you. Booth calls it his 'black box.' He says it's an indestructible box inside a submarine inside a safe inside a canyon inside a force field inside a nuclear minefield. But mine get out. They flash at first. That's almost worse than just accepting it because the interruptions are so terrifying. Eventually I just give up. I give in. And I let them come. And I relive everything that the letters brought up, and some that I didn't write down." Brennan was very quiet, her eyes glued to the vertebrae in her hand; it didn't shake. It was evident to both of them she was looking somewhere farther away. She continued disjointedly: "Until I can't breathe, can't think, can't see and I'm too wound up to sleep. Too miserable to get up and get a drink of water. Too upset to cry. Too shaken up to reach my arm out for the phone. Too scared to move to think, to speak. So I lay there in silence until I suppose my mind feels sorry for me and lets me pass out."

Brennan put down the vertebrae. She pressed her eyes back to the microscope, not looking at Angela's horrified expression.

Neither one saw Sweets lingering in the doorway. Neither one saw him leave without a word; he didn't come in.

"I know." Angela's words were so surprising that Brennan actually reared her head back like a fisherman reeling in a catch. She blinked. Angela's face was compassionate. She nodded once or twice. "I know what that's like. And on those days…I have Hodgins. And he hands me the glass of water. And he holds me. And he doesn't have to say anything. He just holds me until they go away."

Brennan was embarrassed to realize how small her voice sounded in the big hollow room: "Do they ever go away?"

Angela shrugged. "How should I know? That's a question for Booth. He's the one with the – what was it? Black box inside a forcefield inside a minefield?" Brennan laughed a tight laugh and Angela joined in.

"You forgot the submarine."

"You didn't have to tell me all of this," Angela said finally. It was Brennan's turn to raise her eyebrows skeptically. Angela's face tinted pink with appropriate amounts of sheepishness.

"Okay…I bullied you into it somewhat. But seriously Brennan…" and Angela, who was always direct, picked at a cuticle instead while she spoke, "thank you for…for being so honest. I really didn't understand and you explained it to me." She paused a beat and then looked up, catching Brennan's gaze with such an intensity it shocked them both. "Why? Why me?" Brennan met her challenge squarely.

"Because you're my best friend." Angela looked away, flattered but disquieted and Brennan returned her penetrating perusal back to the skeletal remains, jotting down her final notes on the file in her hands as she crossed her legs tightly against her. She spoke with a half shrug. "Also because as Bruggemann suggests 'every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.'"

"Where did you hear that?"

"John Paul Ledearch's book _The Moral Imagination. _He's a notable peace builder."

"I thought you were an anthropologist." Brennan peered up at Angela from under eyebrows while still taking notes.

"I can read."

Angela laughed.

"That's probably the most flattering job description I've ever gotten."

"It's true," Brennan sighed. "You keep things in perspective. Your video just proved that. You see the world in a different way. So when I need to make sure I'm not….overreacting…I enjoy talking to you." Angela blinked at her.

"Name one time when you have ever overreacted in your life." Brennan did not deign to respond. She clicked her pen on the pad of her file and walked out, leaving Angela to stare down with a sigh at the bones on the table.


	11. Do You Not See My Tears?

She didn't get very far. Her office was always a sanctuary after a fight…or a discussion? Or whatever that had been with Angela. Whatever it had been it had made her bone weary. Bone-weary. She was becoming too reliant on Booth's puns even in her spare time.

She dropped into her chair without a second thought and opened up her laptop zooming her fingers over the track pad impatiently trying to resurrect some glimmer of life onto the screen. Her inbox was dead; she liked to keep it tidy and she kept up with it on her phone. Her case files were easily sorted within minutes. She reclined, arching her back and unbuttoning her lab coat to rest over the back of her bouncing swivel chair that bucked beneath her movement.

It was staring at her.

She resolutely attempted to find something else to do.

She opened up the word file with her story on it. She had been stuck at the same place for days. She was lying to herself. It had been weeks. She was ashamed to be looking in her inbox in fear of her publisher's emails, gentle as they were, probing for updates. She was one of her publisher's biggest clients, so they were always very polite about it, and huge fans nonetheless, eager to find out what happens next, but Brennan always felt vaguely guilty when real life got in the way and she would open up her word document, staring blankly at it and eventually close her laptop concluding to herself she was just too depressed to write that day, or too exhausted, or too busy, or too stressed, or too overworked, or too unmotivated, or too uninspired, or most of the time, too fed up with Booth.

Out of the corner of her eye, it kept staring at her with its bright familiar colors and all the wrong textures.

Brennan irritably clacked out another sentence. It was flat and dull and not even close to the kind of polish she demanded from herself. Her characters wouldn't do that. She deleted it with a curl of her lip and tried not to look through her hair. She focused harder on Agent Andy but the word 'agent' was just too familiar under her fingers from countless real reports on this very keyboard that her fingers kept inevitably typing Agent Bo- and then having to go back and then backspace and retype Andy in its place. She hated herself and slammed her laptop closed pettishly.

It was unavoidable really.

Her phone dinged with a message. She almost swooned at the intrusion and eagerly clicked it. She felt a deep gut sinking sense of guilt. It was her publisher. She could see it even from the first few lines of text before she opened the email. She deleted it without reading. How was she supposed to explain the predicament of her partner reading her diary, her world falling apart and then the inconvenience of accidentally typing his name every other word when she tried to write? It was all too much.

The letterbox was looking like the best alternative by this point, and with a very unladylike invective, Brennan gave in and stalked over to rip a letter out of the bottom door.

She sat back down at her desk and sighed running a finger over her eyelid delicately. She could feel the point of her nail digging into the sensitive flesh on the inside of her nose; she needed to cut them. She peered out of the other eye at the handwriting.

Another letter from the outside world.

It had a return address from Evanston, Illinois. She swallowed. She knew who this was from. Northwestern was located there. She slit it open quietly, her heart the loudest thing ripping besides the paper under the letter opener and unfolded it with two careful hands, creasing the crevices with her nails.

_Dear Temperance,_

_ It's strange to write this to you, to look back. It's like looking into a mirror, looking into a mirror. I remember the day Sarah died. I even remember the day you came to Northwestern and sat down in that first classroom. You wore a white button down and a ponytail and no makeup; I remember because it was so unusual. _

She blushed and smiled into her shoulder. She was almost surprised to find the soft touch of cotton there against her cheek. Her dress was a colorful floral print, if blue and white could be deemed colorful; it was for her. She had expected herself to still be wearing an oxford button down; Booth had changed her. Even her wardrobe was unsettlingly disconcerting in the face of a past passenger.

_ I remember when you used to drop by my cubicle and we would talk about your experiences in college; they seemed so funny, small, wonderfully distant, easily solved and mostly surreal to me. Surreal is a strange word I suppose. But when you had walked across your college campus for the first time, I had just married Ally. _

_ When you declared you anthropology major Asher was born._

_ When you walked across your college graduating stage, we had just built Daphne's crib._

_ When you came into my classroom I had just buried them all. _

Brennan had trouble drawing the next breath.

_ When I pulled out that picture of you from the yearbook it's strange to think that at that time I used to drink myself to sleep at night, remembering when I was three weeks into Ally and my relationship having no idea that this was the girl I was going to marry, the woman who would bear my children, or the family that would break my heart into shatterglass dust. _

_ It's why I liked you so much Temperance; I saw so much of myself in you. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I know we've never been quite this honest with one another. I won't tell you my life story, nor will I ask if the whispers I heard of yours were true – though I will confirm the ones you heard of mine were. But all of the professors…we knew what you were._

_ What I was?_ Brennan thought, confounded and not a bit put off. She was shocked and confused. Mr. Meradin's – Caleb's – honesty was bracing, the way ice water was bracing, which was to say shockingly icy in a gust that knocked the wind out of her lungs. She couldn't quite gasp for air and tried to swallow.

_A foster kid. We weren't supposed to know, but it follows someone like a malaise, something that can't be shaken. It was obvious in the way you ate, the way you spoke, the way you never had anywhere to go, not just for the big holidays but for the little ones, the three day weekends. I would ask where you were going for President's Day Weekend, Labor Day Weekend, Fall Break and you would always smile sweetly and say "oh catching up on laundry," or "managing some chores I've gotten behind on" or even the most outrageous "getting ahead on my dissertation" as if you were anything but. The most startling, obvious and glaringly painful truth that we all could see and tried not to point out to one another was that you simply had nowhere to go. But our programs were – are – small Tempe. You remember that. _

Tempe. It had been years since anyone had called her that. It was alien.

_Frederick Douglas once wrote, "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."_

Brennan knew that quote. It was one of Booth's favorites. It was his inspiration to make Parker better.

_ But what do you do with the broken children?_

_ I don't suppose I'd ever offend enough to suggest you've gone to therapy._

She laughed bitterly.

"Oh God," she muttered aloud. "If anyone needs therapy though, it's me." She glanced quickly around, half afraid Sweets might hear and jump down her throat, and more than wishing Gordon-Gordon was around so that he could give her some food and really listen.

_So when it became apparent that you had nowhere to go, I began to take a more…personal interest in your welfare. It started with your lab partner Asha. That was a mistake; she was a silly, easy girl that I fell into bed with out of like you said, a philandering wanderlust eye because I was – am – easily distracted. But I wanted to know you more, better. I was desperately disappointed to realize she was a stupid pettish little thing that knew you very little and was off put by your shyness. _

Brennan felt bruised inside because she remembered how rent in two she had been when she had thought Mr. Meradin preferred Asha's company to hers. Not in that sense of course. Not yet. But he had blown her off when she had lingered behind after a lecture, eager to discuss some esoteric point with him instead to flirt with Asha who had been puzzled but flattered by his interest. Brennan soon realized why when Asha had come to class with more than notes in her bag; she had seen the condoms when she had asked to borrow a pencil. She had never _dreamed_ he had only been using Asha to get at her. She felt like her brain was overcrowded. _Stop thinking, stop thinking _she chanted to herself. It was an old habit she had picked up from foster home number four when her foster father used to yell at the not four, but five foster children they had in their home: "Stop thinking! Stop thinking! You don't get to think!" Whenever Brennan felt that her brain was overripe with whirling confusion, for better or worse a tiny little drill sergeants voice floated up the stairs of her cerebral cortex: _stop thinking, stop thinking!_

She read on, just to distract herself.

_Sarah wasn't in any of my classes, or else I might have felt a greater degree of guilt at her death, but like I said earlier, ours is a small community. The tragedy affected us all. I was struck in particular by one fact though: no one seemed to remember, though you say everyone got the two of you confused, that you two were best friends. The day after she died –_

Brennan noted sardonically Mr. Meradin – and she still couldn't bring herself to call him Caleb even though they had shared a bed together – couldn't quite bring himself to say that Sarah had killed herself.

-_everyone returned to school grieving and wailing about their loss and you stood in the eye of the maelstrom, dry eyed and confused, looking lost. No one approached you. No one offered condolences._

_ No one saw me_, Brennan thought and her eyes popped a bit at the next line echoing her mind so uncannily even after all these years.

_No one really saw you, did they?_

_ You said Sarah was a good girl, a quiet girl. _

_ Were you so different?_

_ Are you?_

Brennan swallowed, dry mouthed. _Am I?_

_ What saved you and not her? Temperance it's a question that I didn't realize I've been asking myself all these years until this very moment, this very sentence that I penned. But it's come clear to me, dear God. What saved you? It could have so easily been you, and I don't think I could have lived with that. Not you too. I'm not confessing my undying love for you, but I had just lost my wife. My _wife_. My daughter, my son. I buried them all. You were the first person I had truly cared about in a long, long time, and it's because you were unhappy. I cared about you because you made me feel less unhappy because I felt like I could solve some of your problems._

_ But it could have been you._

Brennan was breathing fast now. Sarah's death was something she had never discussed with anyone. Not with Booth, though he doubtless knew of it now having read the letter, nor Angela, nor Sweets. She had certainly never brought it up with Max. She had grieved, a little, but in private and in tiny increments in far apart years. But she had never once thought of Sarah's death in this light; that it had been a toss up between the two of them, a twist of fate. Nothing but a coin toss. Heads or tails? Sarah or Tempe?

_You were so similar. It was no wonder people were getting you confused. You looked, acted and dressed nothing alike, but superficially none of that matters anyway. Right? Window dressing._

Is that where she had picked up that phrase? She couldn't remember. She could hardly breathe.

_You spoke of Sarah's past with an egomaniacal father, an addicted sister and a depressed mother. I don't know where you came from Tempe but I'm pretty sure that Sarah's past was a lot more run of the mill than yours. What stayed your hand? False hope? Hope that they were coming back for you?_

Brennan felt like Caleb had slapped her across the face so suddenly she couldn't breathe. The switch to first name basis was casual, easy with his transition so sharply into her personal life. She coughed suddenly as if her psyche was gasping for air and her eyes watered despite the fact she knew Max and Russ were only a phone call away.

_Mom isn't, _a nasty little voice whispered.

_Stop thinking! _

_ I'm not trying to be cruel Temperance._

"But you are," she croaked to the page, and a drip fell on it. She wasn't sure whether it came from her nose, mouth or eyes and didn't want to know.

_Sarah died because she was desperately unhappy…but so were you. Did you live because…can I be so narcissistic in thinking it was because of me? Because someone cared enough into saving you?_

_ No_, she wanted to whisper, but her throat was too tight.

_You said you used to make excuses to stop by my office; I used to make excuses to try to find you on campus. I didn't have to tolerate your company Temperance; I enjoyed it. You were a joy to be around._

Joy. How ironic.

Brennan suddenly spasmed curling around her middle like someone had staked her to the floor. She clutched the paper into a fist; it made a tearing sound. She made a tiny grunting sound that was more a squeak. It wasn't a cramp; it was a thundering realization.

Joy.

There was no more of Joy left in her. There was no more of the little girl her parents had left so many years ago. Her eyes welled with tears of physical pain through her gut. She remembered another letter; one to herself in the Maluku islands. One from Tempe. Joy. The little girl.

She was gone for good. Mr. Meradin had made sure of it. Sarah had killed herself, but Mr. Meradin had pointed out the obvious…it could have so obviously been her. Why hadn't it been? Because of Joy. Because there was a little piece of her holding onto her childhood, hoping against hope it would come back. Brennan unfolded the letter, struggling to breathe. This time, just thinking the words wasn't going to be enough.

"Stop thinking," she chanted, and her voice sounded shuddery and precariously close to tears. "Stop thinking, stop thinking. Just read."

She obeyed.

_I wish you the best in life; I see the position worked out for you. I hope that you aren't so unhappy anymore. The pain will ease with time, Temperance. _

She would have believed him only thirty seconds before.

_I promise_.

_If you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to call._

_ Caleb Meradin_

_ I can't do this_, she realized and balled up the paper, sick like she hadn't been since she had eaten four red delicious apples in a row on a dare just to prove to Booth she could, forgetting of course that apples were acidic, and paying for it dearly later when she had felt nauseous for hours in his car riding back from Kentucky. She almost smiled; it was before she had been angry with him. Before a lot of things.

Because if things were how they used to be she would call him now and he would know something was wrong even though she wouldn't tell him and they would go out for French fries and talk about something else for hours and hours until she finally got around to it and then they would maybe talk about it for five minutes and then talk about something else.

But not anymore.

She felt sick again.

It hit her with a sudden striking clarity that she was hungry.

For meat.

She hadn't eaten chicken nuggets since her foster parents had been too lazy too cook dinner.

Joy ate meat.

And Brennan realized with a half sob she desperately, desperately needed to find her. Joy. That little bit of herself she had lost because she felt that if she didn't, then Mr. Meradin – Caleb – was right. What was to stop her from following Sarah? Certainly not Booth. Who was standing between her and death now that Joy was gone?

She hadn't felt blackness this deep so languishingly pleasant since high school. This sharp sweet agony was a flautist keening highly in vibration in the back of her skull. She stood and smoothed her dress flat, crumpling the letter into the wastepaper basket by her desk.

She grabbed her car keys and knew even before she left the office she was going to regret this.

* * *

><p>Sweets had been enjoying a moderately normal day. He had eaten lunch alone in his office, but had skyped with Daisy who was visiting her family in Florida, so that was all right. He had three patients, consulting work, and some case files. He was out of the office by five thirty which was not unusual but unusual enough to make him smile. It wasn't enough to make Agent Booth smile who had seen him leaving and then marched him back <em>into <em>his office with a totally unfair crapload of paperwork to do. But he had jammed to Lime in the Coconut on replay _really_ loudly just to spite him and it had forced Booth to leave before him. Sweets was stuck with the short end of the stick but a feeling of bigger man syndrome and a sense of winning that he wasn't used to feeling with the tough FBI agent. So all in all, a moderately normal day for a guy.

Sweets pursed his lips at the light. It was red. He stared down the completely_ empty_ street in the ten o'clock darkness and contemplated running it but just breathed out heavily and satisfied himself with smacking the wheel a few times to let off some steam.

Not that, in all fairness, Booth was on his A game. But in all fairness, there was no way Sweets would ever have a snowball's chance in hell of beating him now would there? So he took his victories were they were given, and gloated while he could, because he knew when Booth was feeling better, he couldn't get away with so much smirking.

He also knew he should be more accommodating for his friend, who was, after all, down on his luck, but the letter from Dr. Brennan had been shocking and actually quite horrifying. Sweets was feeling a bit vengeful all in all, towards both the partners for dragging everyone into their muck all the time. Why wasn't it like other jobs, where everyone just came in and did their work and went home?

_You wanted a family, _a snide little voice reminded him. _You wanted to care about them. So don't pretend now that you don't. _

The light finally changed and he floored it just to feel like accelerating was going to do him any good. So he almost missed the car in the ditch and had to leave skid marks with the screeching stop he pulled. He winced at the sound of squealing tires and something horrible grinding deep inside his car. He wasn't a motor guru, but that couldn't be good.

He backed his car onto the shoulder just in case, though the road was deserted this time of night and sprinted to the other car.

"Dr. Brennan!" He banged on the window desperately, his heart thundering. He wondered what Booth would do in this situation. _Not forget his gun like an idiot_, that snide voice remarked. He wondered if all therapists had snide voices, or just him. He ran back to his own car, hands shaking and yanked open his passengers side door, rifling through the glove compartment. He heard a groan from the other car.

"Thank God, thank God," he muttered to himself, checking the safety and sprinting back to her car. He stepped in something wet and almost slipped; he managed to catch himself on the door handle ungracefully and the gun went skittering into the grass somewhere as he awkwardly twisted both hands around the handle and skated both feet backwards and forwards trying to find a balance. The door popped and Sweets realized someone was opening it from the inside. He looked down to see what he was slipping in and groaned.

"Sweets," Brennan gasped and though Sweets was disgusted, he immediately felt only concern for his friend and instant contrition, shame and anger at himself for being so ungainly as slipping and letting his gun fall. He was sure Booth would have never let that happen.

"Dr. Brennan! What happened to you?"

"I was just being really stupid."

Sweets realized they were both shouting and he gingerly stepped out of the pool of vomit by the drivers door and gestured for her to turn down her loud rock music. She looked surprised and turned it off.

They stared blankly at one another.

"I thought…" he started. He cleared his throat. "I thought the man who had….with Cam…I thought he had come after you." Brennan put the heel of her hand to her paper white face, which was covered, Sweets noticed with growing concern, with a light sheen of sweat.

"No…no…I'm sorry that I misled you…that I've worried you…no I'm just being very stupid…"

"Dr. Brennan…maybe you should sit down." Sweets declined to mention she was shaking on her feet like an aspen tree.

"I'm just a little sore. I decided to go play soccer."

"Soccer?" Sweets was skeptical as he walked her the short distance to his car and helped her sit in his passengers seat, noticing in the light of his overhead the grass stains on her knees and the cuts on her skinned elbows.

She nodded.

"You got sick from playing soccer and listening to…what was that…the Backstreet Boys?"

Brennan burst out laughing but it sounded like she was about to cry.

"_God_ you're so young. The _Beastie_ Boys. And they didn't make me sick. It was the chicken nuggets."

Sweets didn't speak for a minute as he processed.

"But Dr. Brennan. You're a vegetarian. You've been a vegetarian for…"

"Fifteen years. Yes. I know."

"To suddenly eat meat would be-"

"Bad?" she suggested dryly. Sweets sat back in his seat and puffed out his cheeks full of air, unaware they made him look even more chipmunkish than usual.

"You got sick?" he guessed.

"Not at first," she sighed. "But yes…somewhere down this road…I got very ill. So ill I couldn't drive anymore. I thought I would lie down until the nausea passed."

"And has it?" She looked at him weakly and then closed her eyes for an answer. They were silent a moment, the distant sound of traffic their only company.

"What brought this on?"

Brennan shook her head back and forth on the seat rest.

"It's stupid."

"Try me," Sweets commanded. His tone was so imperious Brennan slit an eye in actual surprise at him. She heaved a huge sigh, her ribcage expanding so large for a moment Sweets thought she might be sick again.

He listened in silence. He tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. Both of their doors were still flung wide open, letting the hot summer air flow through.

"It's not stupid to want to reclaim who you were." She smiled wanly.

"I realized I think...sometime between the music I missed growing up, and the soccer I used to play and the meat I used to eat that it's you...not just you..." she amended hastily but made an all encompassing gesture to include what Sweets understood as the Lab. "You are what I care about now. Not Joy. Not that life. That lifetime. And I guess...she's gone too." Sweets could tell she was holding a _lot_ back from her explanation. That there might be someone else who was gone besides 'Joy'. Brennan shrugged blasély.

"It's terrifying how little I care about now. How little I _truly_ care about now. I used to care so much about my work. Now it hardly holds any meaning at all."

Sweets looked over at her in surprise. She shrugged.

"It's true. It doesn't bother me to admit it."

"Dr. Brennan," Sweets wasn't sure if he was sounding wise, but he was sure trying like hell to do so. "There's more to life than a lot of things." He winced at how bad that sounded but she seemed to catch his drift.

Her eyes teared up.

"Booth took that away from me." She stopped speaking a moment to look out the open door and swat a mosquito to gain her composure. He let her. "He took it all away and I'm not even sorry." She breathed out. "I'm feeling much better. Thank you."

She climbed out of his car and left him to stare out at the space where he had dropped his gun, wondering if he would ever be the kind of man he both hated and admired.


	12. When All Have Left Me

"Two bodies?" grunted Booth, his arms folded and Brennan stared straight at him, refusing to look away, and so had to stare at the skin between his eyebrows. She wasn't quite up to par with his brown gaze, which she could see only millimeters below her focus flicking across her face as usual. She chewed on her lip while she listened to Cam. She could see Cam exchange an irritated glance with Booth, who had crossed his arms to mirror her frustration.

"Two bodies," confirmed Cam. "That's what it has to be. And it has to be more that one sicko moving them around." Booth grunted again, uncrossing his arms.

"So there are two bodies. We have one of them and there's still another one out there." Cam nodded tightly. "And there's at least two creeps playing hide and seek who may or may not have killed them."

"Most likely," Cam affirmed.

"How did you not realize the bodies were different?" Brennan put in blankly. Cam opened her mouth, closed it, put up on finger, folded it back into a fist, shook the fist briefly, looked at Booth as if for help and opened her mouth again.

"I was…panicking," she finally admitted. "I'm sorry Dr. Brennan, that I didn't notice the difference between two corpses in my house in _my shower_."

"It's all right," sighed Brennan, feeling slightly magnanimous since she herself had experienced her own mental breakdown that past weekend when Sweets had found her car, "but next time I'd appreciate if you'd pay more attention." Cam opened her mouth again and repeated her entire ritual. Fascinating.

Brennan was flummoxed. She must have missed a social cue. She looked at Booth for answers but he was grinning. She suspected unpleasantly they were laughing at her.

Sweets came in with a big smile and a baby on his hip. He winced suddenly, his red lips twisting in a silent howl as his neck was wrenched to the left and he staggered, his very curly hair caught in a little fist.

"Sweets!" Booth bounded forward and Cam wrenched the instrument tray out of Booth's way at the last possible second with a rattle as Booth hustled to wrestle the baby away from Sweets who flushed dully. He resignedly let Booth pluck Michael from his grasp.

"What are you doing with Michael? Where's Angela?" Sweets opened his mouth and glanced quickly at Cam, gaping like a fish. Brennan pressed her lips together with amusement as Cam's face darkened.

"With…Hodgins," he stammered. Cam tilted her head to the right and blinked twice as Booth started to expertly bounce the baby on his hip. Brennan felt her lips twist wryly into a smile despite her best intentions not to while watching her partner. She wiggled her fingers in her godson's direction. He burbled in glee. She wished briefly it was so easy with Booth. A snide little voice in the back of her mind told her it was. She wished she had someone to pull her metaphorical instrument tray aside. She let Michael grab her finger to examine to keep her mind off of, well, itself.

"And what is she doing with Hodgins?" Cam asked in her most steady voice. Booth's face grinned wickedly as he cooed towards Michael.

"Your parents are doing the nasty naughty where they really shouldn't oughty."

"Booth," Brennan groaned, not being able to help herself as she drew near enough to him to be able to smell his aftershave and the slick smell of his sweat from his morning workout that he never showered after, though he always claimed he did. It mingled sweetly with the powdered clean scent of the baby shampoo that went with Michael's wide eyes as he blinked at her, reaching out with a tiny rubbery fist before patiently stuffing it into his mouth.

Brennan smiled, almost leaning her face against her partner's sleeve as she once would have as she stroked one gentle finger against the soft invisible hair of the baby's mental foramen. She heard a sharp breath and she stiffened, looking up, and realized she was only inches away from Booth's nose. She stumbled quickly away; she must have shoved her hair up in his face.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"No, no," he hastily amended. "Here. You hold him for a while." Shyly she held out her arms, flattered. They turned just as Michael settled into the lapels of her jacket – she hadn't had time to put on her lab coat – at Cam's throat clearing. Their exchange had an audience of two amused sets of eyes with identical head cants. The partners made a sort of hacking noise, Booth pretending to cough, and Brennan pretending to clear her throat. Cam snapped her fingers at them like they were a pair of recalcitrant puppies.

"Can we please go talk to Angela and Hodgins?" Sweets immediately started backpedaling for the stairs.

"Well…actually I have a lot of work and…I said I'd call Daisy and…I…"

"Oh no you don't," Booth barked. "You think Angela would be happy with you just handing off her son and disappearing into the sunset?" Sweets stopped and gulped.

"Crap," he almost whispered. He grinned weakly. "But she knows you guys...she'd be okay if I had to go...run errands..."

"Let's go," ordered Cam and her heels clapped smartly against the sterile metallic surface of the lab floor clicking swiftly in front of them. They trailed after her, Brennan with the baby, silently shaking with laughter, Booth chuckling so close behind her the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and Sweets draggling miserably in last, as if he could slink out of sight.

They heard them before they saw them.

"Oh Jack, right there. Yeah. Yes. _Yes!" _

"Oh God," Cam groaned.

"That's what she said," Booth supplied.

"Oh shut up Seeley," Cam snapped.

"You're just sad because someone's not getting any," he taunted.

"Shut up Seeley," she said again, but this time her tone was sulkier, and Brennan noticed a rather petulant whine.

"Poor Auntie Cam," she whispered to Michael. She underestimated the sound architecture of the arching lab corridor and it reverberated off the ceiling. The clicking sound of Jimmy Choos stopped and four pairs of eyes turned to stare at her, including the baby's.

"_Bones!"_ Booth gasped. Brennan fluoresced a bright red.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Cam's face was doing a very strange twist around the mouth where she kept sucking her bottom lip in and pushing it out as if she wasn't sure whether to bite down hard or to laugh out loud. She settled for a very ungainly and very horse like snort and turned on her heel.

Booth coughed into his hand and Sweets giggled more than sniggered.

There was a loud groaning from Hodgins followed by a sudden intake of hissing breath. The four stopped walking to exchange glances.

"Why does this always happen to me?" complained Cam ruefully, grasping the handle to Angela's spacious office. "Just once, _once_, I'd like to be on the other side of this door!"

With that, and ignoring Sweets' attempt to tack on his agreement, she flung open the door and marched inside. The two men wilted a little, shuffled and Brennan, huffing, went next, shaming her partner to traipse after her and then finally forcing their shrink to slink in last.

Brennan came up and stopped at Cam's elbow, and saw out of the corner of her eye that Booth stopped at hers, and Sweets stopped at his, so they stood in a strung out line, staring down at the tangled limbs on Angela in Hodgins in blatant shock. Michael burped in Brennan's ear and yanked hard on her chunky garnet necklace. She hardly felt it.

"What are you _doing_?" she finally burst out, seeming to be the only one to be able to find her voice in light of everyone's shocked disbelief.

Hodgins, whose cheeks had been frozen in a puffed out pantomime of a chipmunk chewed a few times and swallowed hard, his face going white with the pain of scraping his throat before managing a squeak:

"…eating?"

Booth burst out laughing.

"B..bu..but…" stammered Sweets. "I thought…she gave…" he pointed accusingly first at Angela and then at Michael. He gestured at Angela and Hodgins. "I thought you two were…you know…" he slapped his hands together in a weird flopping motion that clearly belied that he did _not_ know anything he was talking about.

"We know what?" Hodgins frowned, popping another dumpling in his mouth, which he had inexpertly speared on the end of a chopstick and dropped on his leg first. Although he had Angela were cuddled up together in a mass of blankets on the couch, their laps were covered in takeout.

"We heard you…" Cam panned around for a word to put their yells delicately, "…talking…"

"Oh that?" Angela lifted an eyebrow. "Jack was rubbing my neck. Do you know how hard it is to bend over ten thousand times a day to pick up a baby that weighs fifteen pounds?"

"We thought…" Sweets flushed a delicate pink that crept up to his ears. Angela's other eyebrow joined her first.

"I see. Hodgins, did you know we were making so much noise?" Hodgins, who was busy snuffling noodles, grunted, and looked up. Angela sighed and both eyebrows went down in understanding.

"I suppose he-" here she stopped to backhand Hodgins in the gut, who wheezed, inhaling hot lo mein, "-does make a lot of grunting sounds while eating. I guess outside they could sound like...other sounds." Hodgins glared balefully up at them, his mouth full and held up a finger while he tried to chew, the noodles still draped down his chin like a beard but slowly disappearing as he worked them down his throat.

"I'm not the one who was _moaning_," he gasped, when he could speak, stretching his hand out for the bottled water behind Booth's right hip. Booth stared at him and gestured at the water. Hodgins nodded frantically, hissing between his teeth to try to ventilate his esophagus. Booth shrugged and picked it up before putting it to his lips and chugging some of it down. He a made a satisfied face. Hodgins groaned, wiggling his fingers.

"Asshole."

Brennan covered Michael's ears.

"Jack!"

"Water," croaked Hodgins, "Cam please. Have mercy." Booth passed the bottle to Cam who stared down at him.

"You're supposed to be working," she informed him coolly, before tipping in a few inches away from his mouth and glugging it, letting the water cascade clearly into her mouth so Hodgins could watch. Angela laughed.

"You two are so cruel. Hold on Hodgins. Let me just start moving some of this-"

Cam sputtered. Water had splashed down her front in the inside of her dress and onto Booth who leaped back, the front of his slacks wearing an embarrassing stain.

"Bones!" he bellowed. "You bumped me on purpose!" She stared at him with her biggest, bluest, most innocent expression. Angela had taught it to her. She hoped she was doing it right. Ange had told her to show off her cleavage, but there was a baby in the way, and she wasn't sure that Cam was quite as flexible in her sexuality as the artist was.

"I was doing the rock and roll. Like you taught me."

"The rock and _walk_ Bones!" Booth was still yelling. "The rock and _walk_." He was casting around for napkins. There didn't seem to be any left. Hodgins was laughing. Brennan saw several white corners sticking out from under the pockets of his jeans.

"I was! I was just trying to sway my hips like you taught me to make Michael happy. I must have bumped you on accident, Booth. I'm really sorry Cam," she added earnestly.

Cam looked at her sourly.

"Dr. Brennan," she sighed. "You are very good at a lot of things –"

"Yes I know," Brennan hastened to interrupt her. Angela said always interrupting was good; it made people forget what they were saying before they could build a head of hair. Wait, no, the last part wasn't quite right.

"I'm an accomplished author, and anthropologist and I –"

"But you're not a very good liar," Cam cut through drolly, whisking her chest off with her hands and sprinkling the excess water onto Angela and Hodgins who squealed until Angela nudged him into relinquishing a napkin.

"Burn!" crowed Sweets, snapping his fingers together as frat boys did. They made a satisfying clacking sound but Sweets winced and immediately cradled them to his chest, pressing his lips together, eyes tight with pain.

"Booya," he added in a tight voice. "Did you guys _see_ that?"

Booth pouted as Cam dried herself off.

"Hey! Don't I get one?" Cam gave him a very nasty look.

"Asshole."

Brennan covered Michael's ears again.

"You were really just the byproduct," she told Cam sincerely. Cam rolled her eyes over at her incredulously.

"Is that supposed to be an apology?" Brennan held out the baby under his armpits. He pedaled the air with tiny grunts. Cam's face performed another odd ritual where she looked like she was trying very hard to stay angry, but she couldn't in the face of a baby. Brennan had been counting on that.

"You fight dirty," she accused, accepting Michael gracefully, if a little awkwardly. He immediately tipped his head into her collarbone to play in the little water that remained, his mouth leaving little dribbles of drool. Cam sighed.

"There's no winning today, is there?"

"I am so, so glad I don't have your job," Angela smiled brightly, finally extracting herself from the blankets and standing. Cam shuffled toward her as if to foist her son back on her but Angela (purposefully, Brennan suspected) didn't see. She turned to start cleaning up take out containers. Cam tapped a foot.

"You two can't keep bringing Michael to work. You do have to take him to day care."

"But he likes you so much," Hodgins wheedled. Cam made another strangled face but this one firmed into resolution. She held him back towards Hodgins, looking very much like a little girl giving up her puppy.

"No," she said resolutely. "Get rid of him. This lab is not safe for infants. Who knows what's floating around the air."

"It's more sterile that a day care," Brennan sniffed, miffed that Cam was insulting the lab. "The air filters make sure there are no airborne toxins, and the floors are cleaned with much more precision every single day. I highly doubt there's a daycare in America with that much attention to detail."

Booth appeared at her elbow.

"Don't encourage them," he murmured in her ear, and she was surprised at the familiarity of how close he was. She stiffened, but he didn't respect her privacy and draw away as he had in weeks past. He clutched her arm and peeled her gently back as delicately as spun sugar.

"Cam really needs a win. Give her this one. Side with her this once."

"Why?" Her voice was not the low tone he was employing and Angela, Hodgins, and Cam stopped their brief bickering to stare over at the partners. Cam turned back first, hitching the baby up on her hip while he gleefully sucked on her shoulder.

Sweets had dropped to the couch and was sitting in his most shrink like pose, one leg crossed over the other, holding a half eaten carton of lo mein and chewing thoughtfully, eavesdropping blatantly on both conversations.

"Trust me Bones, come on. Just let her have this one." She hesitated. There was a time when she would have trusted Booth implicitly, without pausing. She swallowed, and hated that she did pause now. She remembered what Sweets had said: _there's more to life than a lot of things. _

As ungainly as his phraseology has been, she had understood his implications. There is more to life than this fight, than this year. More than this transgression. And he was right. She had gone home and brushed her teeth twice and taken a very long shower before drawing a hot bath and sat in that until her skin had shriveled into the raisins Booth liked to pick out of her Raisinets at the movie theaters. He would nibble all the chocolate off like a little boy and leave her with a pile of half eaten raisins that she would make disgusted faces at and hiss for him to throw away before she would obligingly eat because she would get hungry towards the end of the movie.

And as she had sat in the bathtub, letting the water transition from scalding to tepid, she had mulled it over until her brain had felt as shriveled as her skin. What it boiled down to was simply: were Booth's actions wrong enough, horrible enough, loathsome enough to end their relationship?

What he had done had almost killed her. It had shattered her to a sliver of herself, certainly. She had lost not only her temper on the practice range, but every ounce of her self control. She still looked back on that moment with mortification so burning she couldn't believe it was her, Dr. Temperance Brennan, and not an Freudian id controlled animal which had taken over her body which had attacked her partner, threatening to thrash him. She would never be able to remember the incident, or even brush up against the memory, without burning shame and deep regret that flushed her whole body. Booth had violated her. Violate was a perfect word. He would squirm at the term so closely associated with _rape_, but what he had done was to rape her so soundly of her self control, her sanity, what Gordon-Gordon had called her coping mechanism, that it terrified her. Booth had never revealed to her the dates on which he killed people, or the manner in which they died, or their ages, or how they looked. She had seethed; imagine if she knew _that_. Only then would he know how she was _truly_ feeling. A fraction of what she was feeling.

But there was a problem. If their relationship was well and truly over, and Brennan had squirmed, sloshing a bit of the bathwater over the sides of her sunken tub, then her career was taking a severe turn, and so was his. _Who cares what happens to him_, she had seethed, but deep down, she had cared. Because regardless of what she had told herself, they had been partners too long for it to be so black and white, so easily cut off in hatred and remorse for her to turn her back in spite. What would happen to Booth, if they stopped working together? He would lose his office surely. Get a new partner, either a rookie, which he would hate, or an older, less talented about-to-retire agent who hated him and didn't have half of the busts or the talent Booth did. Brennan felt ashamed just thinking about it. She would effectively end Booth's career, dumping him. She would crush his potential, pairing him with someone who didn't deserve him. He would get fat in the bullpen, hunched over paperwork. Probably develop a heart condition. Perhaps even fall back into degenerate gambling. And if that wasn't enough. Brennan's eyes had bugged out at this point. _Parker!_ Who would pay for his school if his father's salary was slashed in half? And what if Booth was a poor role model because he was depressed? And what if Parker got into drugs because he was rebelling against his father's low paying job? And what if in the end, it was all her fault?

Brennan had sunk back in the tub, biting her lip. _There's more to life than a lot of things._

Were she and Booth worth more than this fight?

On the one hand, she knew she was being slightly illogical about Parker's fate. He was once removed from the situation, and had other mentors than his father. Booth had turned out all right. So had she. But Booth. She would be essentially ruining Booth's life. Not to mention her own career if she banned him from the Jeffersonian. She probably wouldn't work with the FBI anymore; Booth would make sure of it. So it would be back to identifying World War I remains and the bones of the Iron Age civilization. Once that would have been the most exciting thing she could have imagined; now it seemed very dull.

She supposed she could move.

She gritted her teeth. It all seemed very unfair that Booth was forcing _her_ away. Then again, she didn't have a son. But if she moved away, she wouldn't see Angela and Hodgins at work everyday. Or even Cam, who she had grown quite fond of in her own way. She would even miss young Dr. Sweets. She had concluded in the end that losing Booth meant losing the whole lab, which deep down she had known from the start.

She had shivered; her bathwater was cold.

She had hauled herself out, dripping wet, and cast around for a towel. She wrapped it tightly around herself and wrung out her hair. Not bothering to towel herself off, she continued her deep musings by simply throwing herself still bundled up onto her bed and staring at the ceiling.

She had known, before she had even started the argument, the final conclusion was yes. But, like so many proofs, she had to work all the parts out in between in her mind before she was satisfied. Yes, they were worth it. Yes, they would remain partners. No, she couldn't walk away because that would mean losing the only family she had one last time and she knew deep down she couldn't bear it. She wouldn't survive it. She couldn't build another family. She could move, if she had to, but she wouldn't thrive again.

She sighed hugely.

She knew the answer then. She knew the beginning of the proof: that she would forgive him. She knew the end of the proof: that things would change between them but they would be happy together.

But she didn't have a clue how to work out the middle.

She had rolled out of bed to dry off, only to realize she already was.

Brennan came back to herself with a start. Booth shook her shoulder, eyebrows raised.

"Come on, back Cam up." She swallowed and nodded, trying agreement on for size for the first time in weeks. She was briefly grateful to see the startled expression on his face. That helped her smile become more genuine and less tinted as she turned.

"Really Ange, I love Michael, but I can't concentrate with him crying."

Angela looked stunned at Brennan's change of sides.

"I'll keep him quiet."

"We identify corpses, Angela." Angela opened her mouth and looked at her son.

"He's just a baby, Bren."

"Now," Brennan raised her eyebrows. "But make this a habit and what about when he's old enough to start touching things? Or asking questions?"

Angela exchanged a desperate look with Hodgins who looked defeated and shrugged his shoulders.

"I dunno Ange," I mumbled. "She's got a point."

Cam ushered them to the door and was saved the trouble of holding Michael by Hodgins, who rescued her from under his son's slobbery mouth.

"That was very good," Booth praised her.

"A little less condescension would be appreciated," she said coolly. He huffed a sigh and grabbed opposite elbows, rolling his stiff neck around. She paused a moment before adding. "Why did Cam need that?" Booth looked surprised at the question and dropped his arms.

"She's just having a hard time Bo-Brennan." Brennan didn't correct him on her name. She didn't mind his calling her Bones, but she appreciated the concerted effort he was making.

"Why?"

"Well, I mean," Booth fumbled a moment, wiping a hand over his jaw. "On the Kentucky case, she got caught in the cave, and she was all embarrassed. And then she had to you know…" he stumbled a minute but hurried through, "clean me up, and then the killer, or the sicko came to her house with the bodies, and she was worried about Michelle…it's a lot of stress. A lot of people looking at her."

"There's always a lot of people looking at her," Brennan said in puzzlement, wrinkling her nose in confusion and slight distaste, "that's why she's the boss." Booth rolled his eyes and gave a weak laugh.

"You're joking right? People are always looking at us! Cuz, I dunno, we're just so pretty or something."

"Or something." They both jumped. Sweets was still on the couch, having been forgotten by both partners. He was now polishing off the last of the egg rolls.

"People always watch you two because you make the most drama."

"That's not true!" Brennan screeched.

"Or you attract it," Sweets amended, his finger in his mouth, sucking soy sauce from it.

"Well whatever," Booth growled, purposefully turning his angrily lined back to Sweets. "Cam doesn't like it."

"You two have been fighting." Booth's turned back did nothing to deter Sweets from joining/butting into their conversation at will. "So Cam's been the one to pick up the slack. Mostly Cam likes being the puppet master in the shadows. Directing and marshaling the troops from the sidelines. True planners are not ones who flaunt around and reveal their hands."

"So you're saying we're the puppets?" Brennan asked skeptically. Sweets shook his head.

"No, you are the heroes, and Cam is the general. You go to battle and she strategizes where everyone is best needed. She doesn't like being the hero. She doesn't like going home to her house and fighting the bad guy. She likes being able to clock out of work and leave it there."

"Are we done talking about me?" came Cam's wry voice. She strode smartly into view, and put her hands on her hips, cocking one out. Booth hurriedly straightened up as if she really were their general. Brennan tried not to laugh.

"Sorry," muttered Sweets, and ducked out of sight. They heard him stop in the corridor, curse and then stamp and few times before he jogged back into the room. He popped his head in and snatched out a hand. "Just one thing-" and he snagged the last carton of fried rice, and with a cheery wave was gone with an apologetic grimace towards Cam.

Brennan stared at the floor and Booth whistled awkwardly between his teeth. It was Cam who finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

"You've got to give him some credit," she sighed. "I guess he does know what he's talking about."

"_Really?"_ Brennan said, and she immediately regretted the heavy flavoring of cynicism in her voice, since she had so recently taken Sweets' advice to heart. She didn't know how to take it back though and so instead thoughtfully sucked in half of her cheek and bit down hard on it.

"I don't like coming home to a killer," Cam said flatly. "And I don't like when things are out of whack. I like when everything is in balance." It hung unspoken in the air: _including you two_.

"Sorry," Booth hung his head guiltily. Brennan did the same. She saw it before it happened but couldn't get her foot out of the way in time so winced when Booth stepped hard on the instep of her foot.

"Yes," she gasped. "Sorry."

Cam closed her eyes briefly before opening them to stare directly at Brennan.

"I know what he did was despicable." Brennan saw out of the corner of her eye Booth open his mouth as if to object but Cam kept talking and he closed it, confused. "But believe me. I'm the one who found him wandering around and I've never seen anyone so miserable."

"Does that excuse it then?" Brennan said it softly.

Cam gave her a whisper of a smile.

"Who do you think told Angela?" Brennan felt her eyes go wide. They flew from the floor to Cam's face. She searched it for the truth but she didn't know what to look for.

"You?" She didn't know what else to say.

A nod. Booth was sinking miserably into the table.

"But you…" Brennan couldn't think of what else to say. "But you're advocating for him now."

Another nod.

"He's tried everything he knows how to fix it and you need to make a decision Brennan. You can't hold this in limbo forever. It's been weeks. Either break it off or start fixing it, but it's cruel to leave it here, for both of you." Cam's eyes hardened, "And for us." She gestured towards the lab. Brennan knew she too, used the gesture to mean the family, and not the surroundings.

"I as well, came to that conclusion this weekend."

"And?" It was Booth now, so desperate, Brennan could hardly stand to be in the same room with him and she had decided in his favor.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I…" she had to swallow and Booth looked so anguished she could barely finish. He was half standing, half collapsed, against the table behind him, both hands palm up loosely cupped on his thighs as if beseeching for alms. Brennan could meet his gaze now. They were the same height. He had lowered himself for her. "I…I can forgive you."

Cam had left quietly.

"What made you change your mind?" Booth hoarsely asked. Brennan had expected him to rush at her and hug her. But he only sat there, staring as if he had never quite seen her before.

"Well," she admitted, "Robert Frost actually." Whatever Booth had been expecting. This was not it. He laughed brokenly.

She stepped closer. "He once said, 'After Jonah, you could never trust God not to be merciful again.'"

"Jonah, huh?" Booth chuckled weakly. "Am I as bad as that then?"

"Worse," Brennan reminded him severely, taking another step closer.

"Brennan, I am so, so sor-"

"Don't," she suddenly said. "Please. There will be a time for sorry but right now is just," she breathed out hard between clenched teeth, "just not it."

He reached the last few inches and grabbed her crossed arm and reeled her in. She let him.

And he held her.


	13. And Hope Has Disappeared

**The original letter is also in chapter 13.**

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><p>"Stop it Booth; you're bugging me," she chided him for the fiftieth time. Their reconciliation was still slow going, but Booth, in her opinion, was being insufferable.<p>

"It's called chivalry Bones."

"It's ridiculous."

"I'm holding the door for you."

"You're in my way." With a gross exaggerated misstep, he moved aside.

"Now I'm not."

"We lost momentum. I was first. I could have opened the door myself."

"Excuse me for politeness."

"You're excused."

"That's not what I meant."

"Why are you angry?"

"I'm not angry."

"You seem angry."

"Look, plenty of women would be happy to have guys hold doors for them."

"I'm not plenty of women."

"You got that right." She paused, scrutinizing him carefully before delicately indenting the elevator button with one forefinger.

"Thank you," she said cautiously. He smirked smugly and she couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't been a compliment. She could never tell.

"So…" he dragged out, clasping his hands in front of his belt buckle in his usual manner as he waited for the doors to swish closed in front of them. They habitually turned in casual synchronization to face the front. She tightened her lips, unsure of where the conversation was going, but she needn't have worried.

"What's new?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Since when Booth? Since when you asked me this morning? Or since the diner? Or even since the car ride over here?" Booth's face clouded over thunderously. He scowled and brushed past her first, purposefully shoving forward through the door to the interrogation room. His sudden bursting into the small chamber startled the tired looking balding man behind the stainless steel table to his feet.

Brennan sighed and filed in behind him. They had been searching for several days without success for the person hiding the bodies. Brennan was becoming irritated with the lack of progress, and the fact that they still hadn't found the other corpse.

She paused on the threshold and he turned, still frustrated but his face softening and melting with apprehension.

"Bones?" His voice was a begged question and she wished she had answered one of those 'what's new's?' even though she had been put on the spot and hadn't known. But there was a letter burning a hole in her bag and Booth's office was just around the door with slit blinds she could shutter shut for a modicum of privacy that the two way mirrors in interrogation could not offer her. That Booth's constant, wearying queries could not offer her.

"I think I'm going to wait in your office," she answered instead. And although he was supposed to be the toughest man she knew, his face crumpled like aluminum foil in front of the suspect, who didn't miss it.

"Yeah, sure, no problem," he gruffly gestured for her to go, but even with her limited social skills, it scored her heart to see how crushed he was.

How had she become the bad guy? She hated that he could do that.

The burning resentment bristled against the inside of her skin her like cinders as she carefully picked her way through the bustling bullpen of agents to Booth's back office and shut the door. Once inside she felt her shoulders slump with unknotted tension. She sighed hugely and heaved her tote bag onto Booth's desk, scattering some unimportant looking papers to one side as she sunk into his very comfortable looking rolling chair.

She unfolded the letter. This one didn't even have an envelope. It had just been shoved into her letterbox hastily as if shoved in with the fear someone was going to catch the deliverer. Brennan opened it and shuffled to the last page, flicking her eyes to the near illegible scrawl. She puffed a huge breath.

Jared.

Oh no.

She didn't remember what she had written to Jared, but she pursed her lips regardless. It was probably something silly and along the lines of being in love with Booth. A ridiculous, overblown fantasy now. She groaned and folded her arms on the desk in front of her, dropping her head into their crooks. She breathed into the tiny dark space, taking comfort from the harsh halogenic light over Booth's desk.

_Dear Tempe,_

_ Or should I call you Temperance?_

_ I want to apologize, first of all, for what happened all those years ago. I don't think I ever did, even though I know the air has long since cleared between us. I have Padme now, and you have Seeley. _

Brennan felt her heart squeeze painfully, so painfully it felt like a fishhook had gripped somewhere between her third and fourth vertebrae and was pulling her up towards the ceiling as she twisted in her seat, her face twisting in regret and remorse, wishing Jared's innocently penned words wouldn't be so innocently meant. He had no idea that depth to which they scored her already dusted heart.

_But the letter you wrote to me forced me to be far more honest with myself than I have needed to in a long time. I think it made Padme angry, because she had been trying to get me to open up for so long, and all it took was one letter from you and I was a wreck that night. I could hardly stop myself from getting to a bar. You talked about Seeley and I being abused. That's a part of my life I pretend I had left behind. I hadn't known when we first met that Seeley hadn't told you, or that I had let slip so much with just a handful of words._

Brennan remembered now, what she wrote, and the string anchoring her to the ceiling was cut invisibly like a puppet, causing her to collapse painfully, silent save a tiny puffed grunt of anguish back into the rolling chair.

_See, e__very so often the pain comes. It's not something I can predict, or something I can tell my doctor about (unless I want to be put on psychotropic drugs so powerful I turn into a living zombie…I suspect so anyways), or anything I've ever discussed with another living soul, so it's just something I ignore until the days it pounces. _

_It's really dreadful. As in _dread_. I dread its coming, but there's nothing I can do; no signs of forewarning like falling ill, which is not nearly as bad, or any inkling of knowledge that it'll be a Pain Day. In fact, I don't wake up as a Pain Day. It just strikes in the middle of a perfectly good day, and I know I have to flee as quickly as I can to hide myself in a dark, small corner of the world until it is evening and I can smuggle my sadness home to bed, hoping that when I wake up, it will be gone._

Brennan couldn't breathe. She turned the swivel chair backwards against the desk and put her feet up against the wall lined with Booth's accolades so she could lay flat, her face towards the sky, holding Jared's letter to the light.

_So I bet you are wondering by now what is a Pain Day?_

She wasn't. She knew all too well. She had just never known it happened to anyone else.

_Well it starts off like any other normal day. I wake up. Maybe don't put on my best clothes because what they hell, it's just an average day. And it starts with something very small. It wasn't your letter. _

_Not yet._

Brennan crossed her legs tightly, feeling her muscles starting to seize up.

_A text from Padme, for instance, is what triggered this one. She had promised to hang out with me but instead had gone out with her friends. Not really something that would bother me usually. Irritating? Yes. Painful? No. But then the niggling thought that my old best friend would have never done that. _

_He's dead. _

_Lost him to something stupid. To disease. Seeley loses his friends to things that are brave. To gunshots and snipers._

_WHAM._

_Pain. Unexpected baseball bat while I'm walking and my face makes a strange little twist on the stairwell. It's a good thing no one was there to see it or they might have thought I stubbed my toe, or found out the Redskins actually won something. It's fine. Quickly under control and I berate myself for being so melodramatic as I take the rest of the stairs two at a time, trying to get the adrenaline pumping to push the thoughts out of my system. My heart beat goes up. _

_Tiny incoherent flashes make my fingertips tickle. Like how it felt when I used to hug him; that scratchy jacket he always used to wear when we knocked back beers together. _

_NO. _

_Fine then. I'll think about being a kid instead. Easy leap from beers to my childhood, right?_

The pain that tickled Jared's fingertips prickled her own with that throwaway line.

_That's better. Being a kid was awesome. I smile. Being a kid is simple and fun. Being a kid makes everyone laugh and happy. Being a kid was when I used to have a family._

_WHAM._

_I miss my Mom. _

_ Stupid right? Jesus I'm in my thirties._

_I'm on the street now and I double over. I have to stop a moment and zip up my jacket over how much my stomach hurts with how much I miss the way it all used to be. Seeley used to laugh. He really used to _laugh_ before he smirked. Now he always has this look in his eyes right before he laughs like he remembers too and he's just faking it for Parker. I miss the way I could knot my hands in my Dad's shirt and squeeze so hard and he wouldn't complain. And how warm and big he seemed before it got scary. And how my parents would hug back, just put their arms over my shoulders because I was a lot shorter and hold me to their huge beating hearts and tell me without words they loved me. _

_Stupid right?_

_Jesus._

Brennan rubbed her temples over her pounding headache; her fingertips came away hot and wet, sticky with silent understanding tears.

_And I fold my arms around myself and keep walking, because hugging myself will just have to do. The pain is here now. And it's for real. And it's not going away. I hate the pain. _

Brennan unclenched one fist from the letter and wrapped her arm around herself, her entire body tense now with Jared's letter, enraptured in his honesty.

_So I hurry forward, not looking at anyone, feeling ugly and unloved. I wished my legs could cover a mile a stride and move me farther away from here than I could drive. Driving; I wish I had a car right now but I left it with Padme. When I'm upset I usually turn up the car stereo and drive until there's no more road. But I can't just drive until I leave everything behind. I can't walk out like my dad did. Seeley thinks he's the only one afraid of being our father._

_I hang my head past someone I know and duck behind a group of people. Everything is so bright now and now I am all pain. The pain won't stop because I am a vortex. I am a black hole of misery and needles. Everywhere I look I only see the broken parts of who I am. Smiling families with children holding ice cream taking pictures remind me of my tired, dismembered family. A father holding the hand of his daughter causes me to gag into a sleeve to my nose. Couples holding hands only reflect my damaged ego. Why does Padme love me? It's a joke. A scam. I can't get married. I can't be loved. Tempe you think you're unlovable; I can promise you Seeley believes the same. I need to be away from the light. I need to be in a small, small space until the pain stops. I know it will though it feels it won't. _

Brennan swallowed and ran her thumb over the last line, almost caressing it. She used to hide in the library. She wanted to tuck her head back into the creases of her arms, back into the dark shelter it created.

_I have been through this before. The Pain Days come in crested waves, as unpredictable as lightning in the sand, leaving smoldering pits of warped glass damages to be ground down by my patient hiding until they are carefully tucked away, smoothed out of sight until another day strikes. _

_And so on a sunny Saturday afternoon I head for the most abysmal place I can think of: work. Away from Padme. Away from home. Away from the gym where I might see someone I know._

_I sweep through the front doors and head not up for my office by the window on the fifth floor, but down, down to the 'dungeon.' Past the first floor and into the basement. I briefly consider the hatch under the stairs but it is locked, and I stare into the tiny room. I am the only occupant of the 20 desks. The only desperate soul._

_Of course._

Brennan smiled wretchedly; even Jared had a version of Limbo to flee to.

_I push into a bathroom so desolate, not even a homeless man would have made his home in the extra tacked on u-bend in the corner. I stare at my pinched, white face. It looks strange and terrified. I wonder if others can tell if it's a Pain Day. I was so scared of meeting anyone I knew, or what they would say. I also wanted desperately to know. I wish someone would stop me. I wish someone would care._

_I'm so sick of people not caring about me._

_WHAM._

_I grab the sink._

_I am alone._

_I can't even cry._

_So I slink into the dark to write this letter._

_Temperance, you are the only person I've ever confided in; but Padme found this letter and read it. And the scary thing is that it happens to her too. And if it happens to her, and it happens to me, and it happens to you…then we aren't as alone as we think._

_-Jared_

Brennan was wracked by a sudden spasmodic coughing fit, as if her body needed to expel everything she had just read. Her feet clattered to the floor and she spun the chair around. She grabbed herself around the middle, pushing the letter on the desk_. _Jared's abrupt ending was brief, but thought provoking. She felt the need to expunge her entire body. She hated the world with a preternatural clarity. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't see past the sharp white anguish of Jared's letter and the firing neurons of her lungs emptying themselves of pollen spores.

"Dr. Brennan!"

The door had opened while she was doubled over in the chair, coughing into the carpet.

"Are you alright?"

She tried to wheeze out she was fine, but couldn't quite manage it.

Sweets thwacked her hard between the shoulder blades and she flinched, her muscles popping back into place loud enough for even Sweets to hear them. She dissolved into another round of coughing.

"I'll get some water," he stammered. She nodded miserably, holding herself together, feeling her body shake apart beneath her fingers.

A wavering glass of water inched into her vision. She snatched at it hard enough for half of it to slosh over onto her sleeve. She winced at the icy feel of it.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey." Her eyes slid shut of their own accord, because the voice didn't belong to Sweets. _His_ hands were there, easing her upwards, slowly circling the small of her back, forcing it again towards the ceiling.

"Just breathe. Easy now. Easy." He was using his shock voice he used on disaster victims. She realized her face was streaked with tears of pain. She wasn't sure if it was from forcing the choking coughs out or from Jared's confession. Probably both.

"How'd – it – go?" she asked weakly.

"Fine," Booth said dismissively, his eyes black with concern, eating up her face too close for partner proximity.

Her skin flushed of its own accord and he seemed relieved at the color.

"What happened to you?"

"I just…swallowed wrong," she muttered.

"Panic attack," Sweets offered from the chair across the desk, where she hadn't seen him sitting.

"What?" she objected immediately. She made a face. "No. That's ridiculous. I am not prone to panic attacks."

Even Booth looked skeptical.

"Come on Sweets, that's pretty far fetched, even for you." Sweets was momentarily distracted.

"What do you mean, even for me?" Booth gave him a look.

"I'm fine," she declared, pushing up on the arms of the chair. She wobbled. Her legs felt like jelly. Wisely, neither man commented. "Booth are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go." He swooped papers off the desk into a bundle. "We've got a ways to drive. You have stuff to do?" She showed him her tote.

"I brought the case files to work on."

"I could be of assistance," Sweets offered eagerly. "I would be an invaluable asset and I could –"

"No," they said in unison, neither looking at him directly.

"Absolutely not," Brennan said adamantly.

"Better luck next time kid," Booth shrugged, clapping him on the shoulder. Brennan was pleased to note he did it with an open hand as she had taught him to do with Zack.

"But –" Sweets started.

"Sorry Sweets," Brennan shrugged. "Psychology is just not a valuable trait."

"Yep, Bones here tells me Freud was what, largely discredited?" Booth smirked.

"Yeah but –"

"Come on Bones. To the car!"

"Can't I at least walk out with you?" The two partners exchanged surly glances.

"Yeah fine," Booth grumbled. Brennan raised an eyebrow.

"I suppose that would be acceptable." Neither glanced at Sweets on the elevator down. Brennan made a show of tucking her hair behind her ears, surreptitiously checking for leftover tear trails.

She held her hands out for the keys while Booth rummaged for them but he only snorted at it before clicking the unlock key to search for his large black SUV. The lights in the front beeped at them as the three of them approached.

"Is there someone already inside?" Sweets squinted.

"Oh no," Brennan groaned softly. Booth swore loudly, dropping everything in his arms and unholstered his service weapon in less that two seconds flat.

"Get behind me!"

There, sitting cheerfully in the drivers and passengers seats were two very dead corpses dressed Booth's black suit, and Brennan's blue lab coat.


	14. You'll Find Me Here

**It was moving time again! But here is an extra, extra long chapter in recompense with just a little tingly bit at the end to make you all warm inside and squirmy. Review!**

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><p>Brennan knew her face looked like it was about to cry by the way Arastoo was looking at her. She sucked in a deep breath somewhere from behind her diaphragm and pulled back her calm. His face lessened its fear and she knew she had regained some of her composure, although the pressure against the backs of her eyes, tongue and lungs did not lessen.<p>

"Are you all right, Dr. Brennan?" he asked it anyway, though they both knew the answer before it left her lips was:

"Yes, I'm fine." She pursed her lips to steady them, hiding their trembling. "Where are we on the defleshing of the corpses we've recovered?"

"The beetles are working as fast as they can Dr. Brennan, but there was a lot of tissue left over. All three corpses were only a few days, if not hours, old." Brennan felt sick to her stomach. Their murders were very infrequently so new.

"Have Cam take a bone saw to it."

"Dr. Brennan?" She snapped her head up but tried to keep her voice calm.

"We need those bones as fast as we can Mr. Vaziri. Ask Dr. Hodgins and Dr. Saroyan if they can't help speed the process along by sawing off larger pieces of the flesh, such as the muscles around the thigh, removing the organs, etc. to make it easier for the beetles to clean the bones."

"They've already done most of that Dr. Brennan."

"I know," Brennan snapped. She almost ran her hand through her hair but stopped when she held her gloved hand up to her face. Instead she stripped both latex gloves off her hands with more force than necessary, venting her frustration. "See if they can't find smaller scalpels to do the work."

"They might scratch the bone."

"Then find more beetles!"

"I promise Dr. Brennan, I've found all we have."

"Can't we get more?" she felt like screaming but stopped when she heard Cam's familiar Jimmy Choo's clicking in the hallway.

"Dr. Brennan-" Here Arastoo hesitated again, and Brennan knew he was balancing precariously on the knife between boss and friend. She steadied her resolve.

"Could you run some more tests on what could have possibly been the cause of death? Are they different or the same?" His face fell, pushing him over onto the side of boss, just as she had hoped for. He sighed and his wavering hand which had been inching from his side, clenched his own arm as if he were scratching it, instead of reaching for hers in sympathy and he brushed past her.

"Booth has no news." Cam's voice preceded her before she stepped out of the shadows into the bone room. Brennan hardly glanced at her, affixing her gaze on the clear box over her shoulder present on the raised platform of the lab table where the body was undergoing cleaning by the beetles. She was in the bone room, her table noticeably empty of any bones to examine. She was anxious to begin, though she knew the chances of the bones giving any clues were slim. Their leads on this case were absolutely minimal. Booth was just as frustrated as she was.

"Thank you Cam," Brennan said it dismissively, turning her back defensively and hunching over a lab report and perusing it carefully, as if it might give her the answer she so desperately sought. In reality it was just a remnant of their Kentucky case. She waited for Cam to leave and heard her sigh.

"Brennan." Brennan felt cramped again, her insides twisted with anxiety. Brennan felt the line, strung between them, taut with the tension that always danced there, never so easy as it was with Angela. She avoided the pity.

"Where are we on identification?" she asked instead. Cam came to lean on the other side of the lit examining table and pressed both hands to the top of it, splaying her fingers. They looked like black shadows against the light. Brennan flicked it off, irritated with the contrast. Cam slouched back with surprise, a flicker of hurt on her face.

"We don't have a match on any of the victims from the criminal records database. Angela is running it through the DMV but so far none have pinged from the surrounding area. It'll take hours for the entire country. Possibly days. We're also running their prints."

"What about their autopsy reports? Cat scans?"

"They all seemed to be healthy, functioning adults."

"Seemed to be?" Brennan honed in on the semantics. Cam glanced up at her from under her eyebrows.

"They were healthy adults," Cam corrected tiredly. Brennan dropped the tidbit of a lead they had with disappointed disgust and turned away.

"Brennan," Cam said her name again quietly.

"Why don't you help –"

"I'm not an intern," Cam said just as quietly, but with a touch of steel in her voice. Brennan bobbed up from her lab report in surprise, her breath crushed out of her lungs quicker than she expected.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said I'm not an intern. You don't have to suggest I work because you don't want me to be concerned for you."

Brennan swallowed, not sure what to say.

"I'm your friend too," Cam gave a tiny, lopsided smile. "And Booth is just as crazy as you are right now. When he has something, he'll call. It wasn't you." Brennan let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Booth's four days of silence had been killing her.

"You know how he gets," Cam went on blithely, picking at a cuticle. "It's just that…since you two aren't as…solid…as you used to be, it might be a little more awkward than you're used to."

"Yes," Brennan admitted tightly.

"And that would be hard to admit to Angela, because she so desperately wants you to be happy again."

"Yes," Brennan whispered to the table.

"But it's okay," Cam said with a very small smile. "You don't have to be happy around me. You can save up your energy for her and Hodgins. To make them happy." Brennan swallowed very hard and knew her face looked like it was going to cry again, but this time couldn't push it under the surface.

"Thank you."

"With Booth," Cam offered unexpectedly, and Brennan leaned forward on the lab table too, conspiratorially interested.

"Yes?"

"Just...take your time. You two have had a rough...couple of weeks. It'll take some time to find your footing again." Brennan blinked at her as she processed. She opened her mouth to say she didn't quite know what that meant when another, louder voice roared.

"Bones!" the cry startled her so much she yipped a tiny clipped squeal of surprise that made Cam laugh. Booth found them both laughing together, two tight strained laughs to be sure, but laughs nonetheless. Brennan watched as some of the furrows of his brows melted away at the sight. She instantly was able to breathe a little easier.

"Thanks Cam," she said and almost skipped the two steps it took to cross the room to his side.

_Nothing like a good old fashioned serial killer to get those two back together_, Cam observed wryly to herself.

"What?" Booth frowned, unused to hearing Brennan thank anyone for anything.

"Oh," Cam saved Brennan from an awkward explanation and was rewarded by the look of intense gratitude on her friend and coworker's face. "For the autopsy reports." She snatched up the folder Brennan had been reading on the Kentucky case and almost winced. Pictures of her snapped after the cave-in taken as evidence were paper clipped to the inside. In one she was slapping away the wrist of a shy, contrite looking skinny man in glasses trying to cover her in a shock blanket. She tucked those carefully behind some statistics and saw Brennan hide a tiny smile.

"Why are you here?" Brennan asked Booth and saw both Booth and Cam stiffen at her question. She realized belatedly that this must be what Sweets meant as "the way you phrase questions is rude" when she had asked him for social cues.

"I mean," she fumbled. "Do we have a lead?" Booth's face brightened and cleared simultaneously with the understanding. She noticed he wasn't wearing his cocky belt buckle. She looked away, lest she be caught staring.

"Sort of! Come on. I want to take you for a drive." Brennan gave him a lopsided grin.

"Alright."

"Cam, we'll catch you later?"

"We'll call you with any results," she promised wearily. Brennan was already halfway out of the room but had to search for Booth, who had paused to grip Cam's arm in thanks. To her surprise, Cam too, looked near tears.

"We'll fix this," he rumbled.

"You better," she grinned, but it was a watery one. Brennan had to look away, even though what Cam had told her she took to heart. Everything took its own time. Her and Booth's new working relationship would take some adjustment. Adaptation was a biological product, but it had taken evolution billions of years. Hopefully it would take them less time, but it would take just that: time.

Booth was unusually quiet as he walked her to the car, and didn't open the door for her as usual. She tried to not let it rumple her fur. Or was it feathers? He put the air conditioning on too cold, even though he knew she hated that. Instead of fixing it as she normally would and starting a fight, she kept her hands twisted in her lap, biting her lip and thinking about what Cam said. Everything in its own time.

"You got new car mats," she observed with some surprise as they pulled onto route 1.

"What?" Booth pulled himself out of his reverie, seemingly lost in deep thought, though Brennan knew him too well to fall for that. He was studying something else, or thinking hard. Whichever it was, he was thoroughly ignoring her. "Oh. That. Yeah. Yeah I did. The old ones were just…you know. Gross. I threw them out."

They had picked those car mats out together. The ones in the back seat had the Justice League symbols on them, just to be quirky to spice up the staid black SUV, sort of like the equivalent of Booth's socks. The new mats were all black. Brennan supposed they were better at catching the crumbs Booth dropped when eating in the car, even though she hated when he did that because it made the leather smell of grease. It did so now. She bit the inside of her cheek.

"They're nice," she lied. Booth grunted and stared out the window. They were travelling farther into Maryland.

"So where are we going?"

"Oh, got a tip off. Going to check it out. Not sure really. I'll get a call here in a bit." It was unlike Booth to be so vague. Brennan swallowed but folded her arms up under her breasts.

"Are you cold?" Booth seemed honestly surprised.

"Just a bit," she was relieved and reached for the fan.

"Jesus I'm boiling," Booth continued, loosening his tie. Her hand dropped. He wriggled out of his jacket and she reached for it hopefully as he steered with his knees, but he didn't even glance at her as he threw it in the back seat. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she redirected the fan vent and stared out the window.

There was a long, tense silence before Booth switched on the radio, a strange, unaccustomed gesture they never before had needed when they drove. Horrible music filtered through the car, something along the lines of unending chain saws. Booth bobbed his head along to the song. Brennan couldn't stand it and switched it to another station.

"Hey, I was listening to that!" he seemed genuinely angry. Brennan was a bit scared of how upset he seemed and obligingly changed it back, although the cymbals crashing gave her a headache. Booth rolled his tight jaw and she tipped hers against the window.

"So I changed Parker's room," he had to yell over the music but didn't turn it down. Brennan followed suit, though her throat seemed overfull as it was.

"What?"

"I changed Parker's room!"

"What?"

"Parker's room!"

"What about it?"

Booth finally gave up on the music and turned it off. The silence was deafening. He wrestled his car off the exit as he glared at her out of the corner of her eye as if this was somehow her fault. Brennan was bewildered at his attitude. Cam had said he wasn't mad at her. That they were fine. Clearly Cam was wrong. Which also meant her advice…was crap.

Brennan felt a flush of irritation begin to creep up her neck.

"Parker's room," Booth said in a tight voice. "Me and Parks switched it. We went shopping for new comforter and stuff. We spent Saturday moving it all around. Looks good. You should come by and see it."

Although Booth's words were friendly, they cut like ice. She, Parker and Booth had been planning to redecorate Parker's room together for months. She had promised to buy Parker a new piece of furniture, her treat. He had been begging for a bean bag. His father had wanted to get him a desk. For Booth to disregard her, to have cut her so completely out of his life…their life…it hurt. She felt the cut inside her collarbones, like a coroner was already beginning her autopsy, slicing her life apart while she was still in it.

"You went without me?" she answered numbly, not sure what else to say.

"Well yeah," Booth scoffed, wrenching the car around the road like the assholes he so often yelled at. She clenched her door handle tightly as he circled a city, looking for something she couldn't see. "We didn't know when you'd be free, or what you were up to, or…you know…"

She knew.

"I…" she gasped as he narrowly missed rear ending a Buick and screeched, "Booth! Watch the road!"

"I'm watching the road!" he argued back. She felt very, very tired. She could feel the scalpel peeling back her skin, one excruciating inch at a time.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked quietly.

"I thought you'd want to come visit Parker," he answered with a falsely confused tone, spreading his hands on the wheel, his brown eyes wide and innocent.

"Why are you telling me this now, when we're on a case?"

"We're not on the case yet, and we always talk about stuff in the car."

"Stuff. This is stuff to you?" she asked flatly.

"Yeah!"

"Just stuff?"

"What else would it be?"

"Me, being like a second mother to your son. Your son, whom you had, out of wedlock with a woman you can't stand, that's what you want to talk about in the car?" she knew she was being intentionally cruel, but she was piqued. The air was freezing and she slapped it off finally as Booth found what he was looking for and turned into the underground parking garage, taking a ticket from the meter and driving to the very last floor, his jaw clenching and unclenching before answering.

"Don't ever talk about my son that way," he spat.

"Or what?"

"Just don't Bones." His voice was a warning. A threat.

"You think you can hurt me?" He laughed a short, horrible ashy laugh.

"Oh, I know I can hurt you."

"Try me," she dared, and she knew it to. Knew by the look in his eyes that what came next was going to crush her, was going to destroy her, and didn't care. This was going to be worse than the mailing of her letters. This was going to rip out her soul, finish the autopsy and create a pulp of her organs.

Booth opened the car door and slammed it behind him, walking out into the parking garage. She followed him out, her fury mounting.

"What, we're going to fight? Baron it out?"

"It's duke it out, you squint," he taunted. His barb stung, even though it was the littlest one he could have dredged up. Her face must have shown it because his flickered into genuine surprise and hurt before he pulled down his mask of rage and advanced a step.

"Where to start," he grimaced. "With Daddy?" She held her head up, not quite meeting his eyes and shrugged bravely. "Or Mommy?" She dropped her gaze to his chin. "Or brother?" Her gaze went to his chest, her throat thick and wet and he hadn't even started yet.

"Please, go ahead. You're just a scared little boy whose afraid I'm going to hit you." She was purposefully goading him, she knew. She wanted him to hurt her. Wanted him to finish it. She didn't know why he was being so cruel today, but she would rather it be over now than have a slow sickness creep over their relationship like cancer and destroy it piece by piece.

"Why don't you just admit it?" Booth shouted.

"Admit what?" she snapped, and she realized her face was bright red, her tears up under her skin, threatening to explode out of it.

"That you hate me!" She staggered back a step, away from the car into the shadows of a concrete pillar.

"I don't hate you," she whispered, and she felt the first tear fall. Booth advanced on her cruelly, viciously, step by careful step and Brennan knew there was nowhere to run.

"You hate something."

"I don't!" More tears joined the first, tributaries forming a flood.

"You hate me!"

"I don't!"

"Hate!"

"I hate this," she sobbed raggedly at last, giving way to his onslaught. He stopped advancing, breathing hard.

"Hate what?"

"That everything is different. I feel like I came home and you changed _everything."_

"No I didn't," he contradicted her automatically. His mask was slipping, his rage draining from his face until just the traces of what it took as toll from him were left. She gestured wildly, flamboyantly, knowing she was out of control but unable to rein it in.

"The belt buckle. The car mats. Parker's _room_! You completely rearranged the furniture. When I walked in I felt like it wasn't even my-" she stopped and swallowed her words but not before he dove down her throat after them with a snarl flitting about his lips.

"Not what? Not your _house_? Not your _car?_ Because it isn't your house Bones! It isn't your life!"

"It was _our _life!" she screamed back just as passionately. "It was our life and by whosever hand, by whatever means it got ripped away-" He clenched his jaw and looked away, content as she was not to contest the point of blame in the middle of a more crucial argument to open up an old wound.

"-and I am _trying_," she gagged on the word, "to piece it back together, but I come home…" she fumbled for a moment with her choice of diction and saw him unwillingly pick up her thread of thought for her, honestly curious, wanting to understand.

"You come home…?" he probed.

"And I feel…cut out. Like I'm not…here anymore. That life left without me. You were…"

"I was what?" Booth suddenly spun on the forehand of his shoes, growing menacingly taller on the tip toes of his shoes as he towered over her while she cowered beneath him. He gritted his teeth and hissed as he leaned in. "Supposed to wait?"

Her face broke in half though she had meant to keep her teeth clenched hard together as a horrible, terrifying, gut-wrenching _yes_ ripped through her core and slammed into him hard enough to drive him back a step. Of their own accord, his fingers curled into her arms, so even though she reeled back from the force of her cry, he pulled her forward out of both force of habit, and force of love.

"You're right," he muttered to the top of her head as he tucked it beneath his chin and together they slumped up against the side of the car, the still warm doors reflecting the sun belying the damp underground garage. "I should have left a space for you."

She couldn't answer him, only grab his jacket lapels harder in an answer, telling him where the space was: here. Right here. His arms curled protectively closer, holding her tightly. She bit the tip of her tongue until the ridges in her teeth made her wince and stared hard at the double Winsor knot in his tie. It was crooked, just like his tiny smile. She didn't return it.

"Why did you do this?" she asked hoarsely, trying to stagger back a step, but his iron grip prevented it. She realized she had wanted him to make a space for her, and he had taken it so literally she wasn't going to get her own anytime soon. She mentally cursed her stupidity.

"Do what?" he played dumb, which she didn't appreciate. He tried to duck down to meet her gaze, which was red, instead of blue, from being so blood shot. She instead stared hard at the tiny nick on the underside of his chin where he had cut himself shaving a few days ago, if the scabbing was any indication of the coagulated blood.

"Make me cry," she said it quietly, icily. "Make me angry." She twitched her gaze up to him, forcing him to let her go, but although he too twitched beneath her, he didn't release her. He dipped his face towards hers. She froze and jerked her head back like a frightened horse.

"What are you doing?" she whispered it this time, as if someone could hear them, and turned her cheek just in case. Booth's lips met her ear and he too whispered.

"Explaining."

The friction between them blossomed as Brennan became infinitesimally aware of his every movement.

"Did you ever wonder," Booth breathed, but Brennan wasn't concentrating on his words as his hands began to slowly graze up the back of her thigh, paying particular attention to each rustle and fold of her pants; she didn't have the breath to stop him. "Why we are in an underground parking garage, ten miles into Maryland?"

"Booth," Brennan said warningly, but her voice shook embarrassingly as his hand travelled slowly up the other leg. He shook his head slowly, his eyes begging her to trust him. His voice was barely a murmur.

"I…" Brennan couldn't think, could barely breathe as Booth's hands both found the top of her pants at the same time. He could have squeezed, just for the fun of it, and his eyes twinkled at the prospect while she flushed crimson, but he didn't as he moved to her waist. She knew what he was doing now. He was searching her for something. A cop feeling a suspect.

Only she wasn't a suspect.

Having caught onto his game she willingly put her arms over her head and up around his neck, making it easier for him to finger gently under each rib, run a fingernail under her bra straps, trace the tiny trail over her abdomen. He was looking for something much smaller than a weapon, she knew. He was looking for bugs. She thumped her head onto his shoulder with a tiny gasped cry she couldn't bite back when he tickled the inside of her right hip and clamped a warning hand over his when he touched the front of her belt. With her eyes she told him she would have noticed anything unusual. He quirked his lips and she bit hers.

"The body movers," she stood on tiptoe to breathe it into his ear so he could reach the back of her scapulae and then trace down her arms. She too, began running her hands down his arms, though taking him by surprise so much that he froze for a moment.

"What's wrong Booth?" she simpered in a breathy whisper. He almost growled, such a guttural response answered her. Brennan couldn't help but catch a hitch in the back of her throat though she tried not to let it show on her face as she signaled for him to turn around, sliding his gun straps off of him silently, before minutely examining the buckles. He took his time wending his fingers to part the collar of her shirt, splaying quick dusted fingers over her collarbones and leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. A devilish little smile lit his face and she had to wonder how much of this he was taking notes on…just in case. As if in answer he touched her lips as if to hush her, but the way he let it linger there, dragging it purposefully down was cruel. She let the tip of her tongue touch the crease of his knuckle for a moment, and was rewarded by the look of surprise on his face, as if he was surprised she knew what he was doing.

She took to examining his tie next, his buttons, before she stretched up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, liking the way his two day shadow scratched on the sensitive part right under her chin. He hadn't found it yet.

"It has to be something we wear every day Booth; it has to be something we never take off."

The killer knew where they would be always. He, or she, or even they – most probably they – had always been two steps ahead of them. The killer had known how to find their car, how to find and scare Cam, when Brennan would be working in the lab. It was only logical they had been spying.

Booth's face went blank with the same sort of terrifying quality as she felt on hers. She gently unbuttoned the first few buttons on his shirt and pulled out his St. Christopher's medal on its chain. She examined it under the fluorescents. It seemed perfectly normal. She shrugged and let it fall back to its usual dangle on Booth's rippling chest. He snatched it up to look for himself but went rigid as her fingers dug into his pants pocket. She pulled out a poker chip, despite Booth's long time recovery, that he kept on him at all times. He left it by his keys, and it became a habit to empty his pockets at the end of each night and put them back in every morning. His face contorted with barely concealed rage and she knew it was more at himself than anything while she fiddled with the inner ring. It slipped easily, revealing a green wire and a tiny microchip with a recording device. It was a microtransmitter.

Booth touched her pockets with a frown. She shook her head. She didn't keep anything in them. He raised his eyebrows in warning but she still wasn't prepared when he traced under her jawline and dipped a finger between her breasts, fishing for a necklace that wasn't there. She batted his hand away harder than was strictly necessary making him suck in his breath. Brennan hoped whoever was on the other end of the recorder was enjoying their sick little show. Their panted breaths and rustling clothes would be unmistakable, if the transmitter was still working even underground. Booth was being extra cautious, it seemed, until he found them both.

Brennan held her breath as Booth motioned for her to spread her legs like at airport security. She felt her face burning with humiliation as he began to go over her inch by inch, the inherent friction, the sexual tension evaporating in an instant now that it was no longer mutual. She put a hand to her face to cool her heated skin and a glint caught her eye.

Her mother's ring.

But it was too small. Too delicate. There couldn't be a device in something as small as that….could there? Brennan stared at it. But there was nothing else she wore on a daily basis. The killers would have known that. They would have studied her beforehand. They would have known her habits. As creepy as that was, it was also incredibly smart. She pulled Booth's hair up from her belt loops to show him the ring clutched between her fingertips with a questioning frown on her face. He plunked it eagerly on the hood of the SUV before digging in the console for something. He returned with a swiss army knife before carefully prying one of the tiny black jewels out. Brennan's jaw dropped. Attached to the back of the 'gem' was a tiny thread wending into the band. It was a camera. A microscopic camera.

Just as carefully Booth replaced it and handed the ring back to her. She tried to refuse.

"Take it. It's fine." His words seemed shatteringly loud after such a long silence.

"Booth?" she said his name with a rising inflection, explaining as best she could her confusion.

"It's not on. We're out of range. They don't work underground, which is what I was counting on. Neither of them are on. We're safe here."

"Well let's destroy them!" she exclaimed. He gave her a half grin.

"Oh really, Ms. Logical? We're finally one step ahead! We don't want to let on that we _know _we're being watched. We can use this."

"Use it how?"

"To our advantage. We can start feeding them false information. They are feeding off our fracture patterns." Brennan frowned.

"For once, I don't follow you. You are using incorrect bone diction."

"Look, the lab is fracturing," Booth said impatiently, his hands expanding in a ring. "Starting with us. The killers are feeding off of that to make us more afraid. Instead of drawing us together like that usually would, they're doing it in a way that's forcing us apart, making us less cohesive as a team, and less of great workers. It's smart. But you're smarter."

Brennan flushed a little. She liked it when Booth told her how smart she was. Unnecessary, but still pleasant.

"Booth…you still…made me cry," she said uncomfortably.

"Fracturing at the center makes them think we're weak," he reminded her. Brennan couldn't look at him so instead stared at a crack in the concrete.

"And what if you're not wrong?" Booth swallowed hard, gripping her shoulder so tightly it bruised, but she didn't mind. It was better than nothing at all.

"We all have our buttons, Bones," he sighed. "I was just pushing yours." Brennan peered up at him from under lashes still wet from a splash of sobbing. She touched his St. Christopher's medal, knowing full well underneath it was scar tissue in his lungs from trying to save his friend in war from a plastics blast. He flinched.

"I guess we do."


	15. When Everything I Was Is Lost

**No internet for so...very...long. Extra long as recompense.**

* * *

><p>"Do we have to drive out to this garage <em>every<em> time we want to have a private word?" Brennan griped, slamming the black SUV door with more force than was strictly necessary and coming around the hood to stand in front of Booth.

"It's out of range for sure of the transmitter, so it's safe," summed Booth. "Look, I would rather play it safe than sorry. Besides three days is hardly enough time for a lead."

"I'm soaked to the skin."

"You're the one who made me park in the structure."

"I offered to drive there. You made us walk in the rain."

"I can't control the weather Bones, but I'm glad of it. It'll mess up the radio signal."

"I feel…uncomfortable now that I know someone is listening…watching…"

"Act natural," Booth responded automatically.

"I'm trying," she retaliated.

He crossed his arms and shrugged exaggeratedly.

"What do we have?"

"Nothing," she told him flatly. "The bodies seem to be absolutely random killings bone wise. They have nothing in common. They were injected with some sort of paralytic and then their heart stopped." Booth grinned. Brennan frowned.

"What? A heart attack, as you so often remind me, is very serious."

"Yeah…but you used dumb people words for me." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Well…I thought we would save more time…make them less suspicious if I was more succinct." Booth's smile was all knowing.

"Right."

"I did!" she objected.

"Well I thought it was sweet." Brennan felt herself flush a bit and cleared her throat, glancing around uncomfortably.

"What?" Booth asked almost automatically. She liked that he picked up on her discomfort so easily, so quickly, and cared enough…so deeply, if she was honest with herself…for her to ask automatically what was wrong.

"The garage…"

"What about it?"

"We fought."

"It wasn't a real fight."

Brennan looked at him very seriously. "It was very real for me." She watched him swallow convulsively.

"I had to make it look like we were fighting."

"I still didn't like that you yelled at me," she told him pointedly.

"Like I said, I had to make it seem real." She declined to reiterate just how real it was.

"You could have told me."

"When? You're bugged. I'm bugged. We can't destroy them; it's our only advantage. So I tried to pick a fight. I know your buttons, your pet peeves. I turned the air conditioning too cold, I hid the car mats in the garage-"

"You didn't throw them away?" she interrupted hopefully. Booth gave her a sardonic glare.

"Come on Bones!" he crinkled his nose. "There are some busty ladies on those!" She punched him hard on the arm despite her prickling skin.

"I thought you said you liked Superman."

"Only because Batman is an entitled prick."

"I like Batman," Brennan scoffed.

"Because he's sexy," Booth teased.

"No," she shot back, but she felt a blush creeping up her neck. Booth pointed it out and grinned, running a finger up her jawline so quickly she didn't have time to blush more deeply.

"Well why do you like Wonder Woman?" she defended, still disconcerted as his flirtatious but lingering touch. "You liked when I dressed up as her for Halloween." She gave him a very sarcastic look when his eyes involuntarily flicked to her breasts. He clapped a hand over them.

"Sorry! Sorry. I can't help it. Automatic reaction. Take it as a compliment."

"Uh huh," she said in an unconvincing sort of way, but wasn't terribly put out. She was rather flattered and was having too much fun bantering the way they always did to stop it now.

"No really, Wonder Woman is pretty boss."

"Boss?"

"You know. In charge. Super."

"Like Superman?" Booth winced and shrugged.

"Yeah. Sort of."

"I'm glad you didn't throw out the car mats." He smiled at her in a warm but nervous sort of way that made her realize he wasn't quite sure how to apologize.

"Forgiven?"

"Did you change Parker's room?" Booth cringed.

"We did move the furniture. That part was true." She waited for him to continue. He took a breath and did. "But we haven't bought anything yet. I promised Parker that we would this weekend." She was very quiet. He obviously hadn't been planning to invite her along.

"Oh."

"But it's a standing invitation Bones." She swallowed.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he cleared his throat roughly. "Yeah. I was just saying that stuff because…well you know…usually we start fighting over a lot less than that."

"Sweets differentiates between our fights and our bickering."

"Fine. Bickering then. But you weren't taking the bait."

"The bait?"

"I was doing everything you hated. I was acting a complete ass."

"Yes," she agreed dryly. It was Booth's turn to redden. "I thought you were going to kill us while driving." He shrugged sheepishly.

"DC traffic?"

"We were in Maryland."

"Um," Booth retaliated brilliantly. Brennan glanced suddenly down at her shirt and realized she had missed a button. She reflexively started redoing her shirt up, not bothering to do them one at a time but just unbuttoning them all and starting from the bottom as she spoke in a low voice.

"Some of it is my fault," she said. "I also made you angry."

"That was the point," Booth tried to brush her apology off. His voice sounded strangely strangled. She looked up, her hands frozen on the third button from the top to see Booth staring transfixed at her. He went even more blood red meeting her gaze, mumbled a sorry and wrenched his gaze to the sky as she finished doing up her shirt with a tiny crooked smile.

"No," she continued finally, the smile dying as suddenly as a heart attack. "I was out of the way-"

"Out of line," Booth corrected automatically.

"Out of line," she accepted the correction into her vocabulary making a mental note. "Because of the things I said about Parker, and about Rebecca."

"They were true," Booth said just as quietly.

"They were cruel."

"I was being cruel."

"It wasn't an excuse."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Anything," she answered promptly. She didn't regret it. She had given him all of her secrets, her most heartfelt letters, and he had a right to know more than anyone. But he didn't ask right away. He leaned back, pressing his lips together and folding his arms up tightly against him as if he were both thinking of how best to phrase the question and then instantly how best to take it back.

"Just ask," she prompted.

"Do you remember me asking…if you thought…I could hurt you?"

"Yes," her voice was slightly shaky but her legs were steady and her eyes dry.

"You…wanted me to." That wasn't a question. Booth was staring at her the way he did as suspects when he already knew the answer but wanted to see if they would tell the truth. Brennan didn't say anything, only bit the inside of her cheek until it hurt her and she saw tiny black spots. She turned her shoulder to him and stared at the ground instead.

Yes, she had told him to ask anything. But trust Booth to ask questions she would never want to answer.

"You were egging me on." Again, this wasn't a question, but an observation. "You weren't even trying that hard to fight back. Brennan-" and the use of her name surprised her into staring at him, his brown eyes so dark, they were barely slits out of his squinting eyes. "-you know everything about me. You could have _destroyed_ me. Yet you barely said anything. You hardly hurt my feelings."

"I don't want to hurt you." Her lips mouthed these words but her voice could barely speak them.

"The confessions though…those were real."

"Please stop." Their conversation wasn't fun anymore. It wasn't funny.

"You want me to hurt you?"

"I'm fine," she contested automatically, but her voice was a thread of a whisper. There was a horrible noise that came from Booth's throat that made her look up, almost prepared for the Heimlich maneuver, but she finally placed it after half a second as a gurgling, sardonic laugh in which Booth stared at her in disbelief.

"You're not fine. I'm not fine. I _miss_ you. But I come home," and she knew he purposefully picked up her diction from her confession, "and…you're here…" he stressed that he understood she had been waiting a long time. "But…all you want is for me to hurt you."

Booth's eyes were red, she realized suddenly and full of bright wetness. She stopped rocking back and forth on her feet and staring at the floor and grabbed his hand, taking three steps forward.

"Booth?" her voice trembled in disbelief, scared for him. He so rarely cried.

"Brennan…you want me to…to…push you around…to…hurt…to…what kind of man does that make me? What kind of man do you want me to be? Is that the kind of man that you think I am now? Did I hurt you so badly that you expect that kind of…" and his mouth barely moved around the word 'abuse' but Brennan heard it anyway.

She felt agony lance through her. She pushed the balls of her feet as hard as they could go down in her shoes as she arched her back, her own eyes pricking with tears and she fell into his arms and hugged him hard.

"No, no Booth. No. Absolutely not. No. I don't know why I thought that. I don't know why I…What I was…Booth no. I don't…" She couldn't find words. Couldn't process what she thought.

"That I should just…try to shove-" and here he tried to shove her away from him, away from the space he had left for her between his arms, "-you away? Because I messed up? Because I'm a lost cause?"

"Please Booth stop."

"Hurt you…why would you want me to hurt you?" He was mumbling inconsistently in a long string of confusion, an unending litany of anger and tears. "To be like my father? The inevitable mark-"

"Please stop! Don't say the-" Brennan tried to shake him.

"Hurting because you're hurting? Why would you want to hurt _more_? Why hurt _more_? Don't you think I know what it's like to hurt? Don't you think that being without you is agony every _day_? Don't you think that if in one second I would make it stop I _would_?"

"Please make it stop!" Brennan screamed over him. Booth looked down at her.

"Is that why you want me to hurt you?" Brennan hardly breathed. He shook her roughly and her head rolled back and forth. There were tears on her own face now, not just his. "To make it stop?"

"I don't want to hurt anymore," she whispered. "Please, just finish it."

His face crashed into hers so fast she didn't see them coming. He didn't kiss her but his cheek melted against hers as he held her to him. His hot breath made her cold ears burn as he pushed his face into her neck and she pushed hers into his, twining together in safety.

"Don't ever say that Bones, don't ever say that. Please. I got you. Please hold on. Hold onto me."

And she did.

Arms snaking up she wrapped them around his neck, finally letting her weak knees give out. He held her up; he didn't let her fall. She knew he never would.

"Let's go home," he said.

"The case," she whimpered. He pulled back a bit and smiled the saddest smile she had ever seen since the day he had told her about his father taking him to a baseball game.

"You never change, do you Bones?"

"Would you love me if I did?" Booth froze, his arms still locked around her. Brennan wished she could have swallowed her words. She hadn't meant to say love, it had only just slipped out. She had meant it in a teasing, joking sort of way, but by Booth's serious, dark eyes, the intense atmosphere and their slick, rain soaked skin, it had permeated the air as incredibly serious.

"Yes," he answered her simply. And opened the door for her.

* * *

><p>The horrible golf ball sized lump hadn't receded from the back of her throat by the time they had climbed the stairs to her apartment and slipped through the door. When Booth had said "let's go home" she hadn't told him where she wanted to go, but he had taken her to the place she felt safest. It made her feel sad and warm inside simultaneously that he knew her that well.<p>

He sank down onto her bed numbly and then jolted up on the look on her face.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and staggered away.

"No," she responded hastily, trying to vaguely motion, hyperaware they were both being overheard, and of the baby bird steps they were taking to repair their relationship. "It's okay. Sit."

He didn't seem to give a damn about anyone but her though, and sank gingerly back into the spot on her bed, his eyes devouring her every movement.

"I'll put on some music," she breathed, hyperaware what their conversation sounded like from afar, what it sounded like they were about to do. She just wanted a modicum of privacy, wanted their voices to be muffled. She turned the dials on something slow, on light tinkling jazz but slipped her mother's glittering ring off her right ring finger and lay it next to the speaker so their voices would be muted and fuzzy. He smiled at her ingenuity and followed suite, slipping the poker chip next to the ring, his hand just barely brushing her shoulder, as if he were carelessly brushing water off her bare skin. His touch burned.

Brennan turned away, the lump in her throat growing painfully. She reached for her bag from the lab and dug inside of it. She pulled a sheaf of papers out.

"Oh no you don't," Booth tried to laugh, but his laugh too, was hollow and forced, and he swung her up from behind, dancing with her slowly and strained, his chin dipping into the hollow of her collarbone from behind. The friction was so tense between them Brennan could almost not stop herself from arching her back against him and writhing around in his arms to turn face to face with him, just to catch a glimpse of his expression. She pulled away to clear her head and her senses. She knew that her and Booth's relationship was mending in a new way, but the new way was confusing and different.

"Stop it Booth," she snapped pettishly, but it had no venom in it. She sank down on his newly vacated spot on the bed and noticed it was warm from his body heat. She instinctively curled up in it as if she had been alone on one side, her arm pillowing her head. She snuck a glance at him; he was perusing her music shelves. She opened the envelope. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his spine stiffen at the unmistakable sound of ripping paper. He turned slowly, languorously, and watched her tug the letter from its envelope.

"Who's it from?" he asked in a voice so casual it gave her goosebumps. She checked the return address and had to swallow to make her voice steady. She still curled a little deeper into herself.

"Elise. She was my-"

"Foster sister," he finished grimly for her.

"Oh," she gave a tiny, sullen smile. "Right…you know." Booth didn't smile back, but only stared somberly at her.

"Are you ready for this?" Brennan gave a tiny shrug.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Do you-" Booth hesitated, but her heart leapt in her chest at his half offer. She sucked in a breath instead of answering and he seemed to take courage from her lack of an answer.

"Do you want me to…to stay with you?" Brennan swallowed very slowly, as if there really was a golf ball in her throat and she had to work it down – a ridiculously inaccurate medical impossibility. It was simply a tightening of the larynx due to increased blood flow from her higher heart rate.

"Sure," she said just as carefully as he was speaking. Booth sank to the end of the bed as she started unfolding the letter. But upon seeing Elise's familiar letters, so unchanged from its neat, perfect penmanship in opposite disregard to her own looping script, Brennan bit the inside of her cheek and had to blink up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan. Booth looked terrified.

"That bad?"

"I…uh…" she laughed shakily. "I…haven't started."

"Oh. Sorry." He stood uncertainly. "I can leave."

"No," she said quickly. "It's okay. You know anyway. About Elise." Booth sank back down with the weight of the knowledge.

"Yes," he said bleakly. "And I'm so sor-"

"Don't," she interrupted, and this time there was fire in her tone. "Don't stay if you're just going to say you're sorry. I don't say how sorry I am that you've been in war. Or how many people you've killed."

"But you're not sorry," he replied stupidly.

"They were necessary kills in your eyes," she sniffed haughtily.

"Yes," he confessed in a hoarse whisper. "But war…is not always necessary." She raised her eyebrows.

"Conflicting sentiment from a soldier."

"I wasn't always a soldier. And neither are you."

"No." She paused for a beat before curling more tightly into her pillow and tilting her head with slight invitation. "Will you…?"

"Will I?" He was being purposefully difficult and she seethed. She knew rationally he didn't want to spook her, nor take advantage of anything he didn't have explicit permission to do since he had so recently done just that.

"Will you please…sit here…with me?" He nodded carefully and they both jumped when the speakers crackled with interference from one of the radio transmitters emitting static frequency. Someone was obviously trying to tune it. Brennan turned a remote on the speakers with a surly expression and pushed the up volume.

Booth made sure her bed squeaked heavily as he crawled in next to her from the foot up, over her comforter and lay his head on the pillow next to hers. He propped his elbow up and then readjusted so he was on his hip, and able to read in the lamplight next to her, between the dip of her neck. He was so close she could feel his breath on her skin.

"Ready?" she whispered. She heard him nod scratchily on the sheets.

_Dear Temperance,_

She sucked in her breath sharply. Temperance. A name unused for so long it looked unreal on paper. The only times it was ever typed out was on formal occasions: for book signings or lab reports. For it to be penned so innocently seemed like a misaddressed page. Out of the corner of her left eye she saw Booth's finger twitch as if to comfort her, but it lay still as she kept reading.

_ I know you thought that I was unfair to you. It has taken me a lot of paper to draft this brief response to your allegations against me. _

Brennan had to wonder if Elise was a lawyer now. That seemed right.

_But I too loved the time we had together, the friendship we shared. Yes, I remember the first time we tasted vodka together, mixing it with orange juice and drinking ourselves silly in the attic. Yes, I remember dancing to boy bands, and the wrestling fights we had upstairs that always ended with you tickling me until I cried._

Brennan was hyperaware of Booth's hot breath on her ear. She felt embarrassed, not from the words on the page, but from the burning feeling somewhere behind her heart that she knew would creep up her throat and force her to cry.

_I remember freshman year as you scoffed through English class, passing little notes to me and getting straight A's without a second glance at the material we read, already knowing where the quotes were on the page to write your papers. It took me days to write mine. Perhaps that's why you're the famous author now, and I am a civil engineer. _

Brennan wanted to pinch herself for not remembering; how could she have forgotten that Elise had been elected treasurer of her engineering sorority at the end of the freshman year?

_This note was as agonizing to write as those diaries we used to keep for one another – your idea of course._

Brennan bristled at this line, her shoulders raising unconsciously and urging a grumbling sound from Booth right behind her as she cut off his line of sight with her unease. She jumped; she had forgotten he was there. She could tell by his reactions, even with his back turned, that he was several lines behind her in reading. Elise's words had whirled her back to so many conversations in the student center, learning to like coffee together. She had been so young; only seventeen.

_Those diaries that you wanted me to keep the whole summer long, our first summer apart when you moved out of our house. What I had done that day, how I had felt at my brother Luke's graduation ceremony to the naval academy, how irritating my mother was playing hostess, and how much I disliked entertaining my relatives. All these thoughts were carefully jotted into the Mickey Mouse journal I would hand off to you when we saw to one another, with twin grins and knowing that I would get pages more back than I had written to you, causing me to feel guilty. For you, writing and remembering were as easy as breathing. You should know it's not that way for everyone Temperance. _

Brennan had to bite the tip of her tongue with her left molars, her tongue twisting in her mouth, filling it up instead of the words she wanted to say. Elise always had a penchant for dropping those blasé one line accusations into her speech.

She almost bit the tip of her tongue off when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She realized she had been staring into space, not reading, and hurried to put her gaze back to paper to catch up to Booth's sympathy.

_I remember that car ride when I told you our friendship couldn't be the same; I didn't mean it could be over…but I suppose since the journal is still in my care, and I never wrote another page to you, that the act in that could be perceived as final. Sometimes I look through it._

Brennan felt the creeping burning in the base of her throat now, restricting her airflow. She had to open her mouth.

_I mostly skip your pages, to see what I was up to all those years ago._

Another one liner. Brennan felt the burn stretch up to the top of her throat, to the backs of her teeth. She gritted them firmly, and told her eyes not to water.

_Occasionally I glance through them, to realize that you were, as you said, desperately unhappy our freshman year._

_ You think?_ Brennan wanted to scream cynically, but she kept unnaturally still and found that Booth's hand was still resting on her arm heavily.

_But I think…and please don't hate me for this…that's why we grew apart._

Brennan felt her mouth drop open in horror. Her fingers spasmed on the page, clenching a bit, dipping the paper up and down and Booth made another noise, half concerned, half annoyed. She couldn't help digging her heels into the covers and scooting the last few inches to be next to him, hip to hip, back to chest. His warm solidness was reassuring, and for a minute she closed her eyes, letting his smell overtake her, trying to erase what she was seeing.

_Be rational_, she told herself. _Don't overreact. Elise wouldn't like it._

But closing her eyes was a bad idea; she opened her eyes and realized her vision was sharper than it had been, and something hot and wet was trickling over the bridge of her sideways face towards the mattress.

_I was _young_, Temperance. _

_I was younger,_ Brennan wanted to snap, but she couldn't.

_I was only what, eighteen, nineteen at the end? How could you expect me – and although I argued against it vehemently when I was in college – to act like I wasn't from the charmed existence you so picturesquely painted? I was from a beautiful home. My grandparents were all in their nineties. My father was healthy and strong, my mother a surgeon, my brother an officer but not overseas. I had the perfect white collar life. I noticed expensive suits. I liked having more than twenty pairs of shoes in color matching order. Yes, we took in a foster child to increase the social standing of the family in our Church circle. _

_ You were what you so deeply feared: a charity case._

Brennan wanted to die. Booth had clearly either finished or was so overwhelmed by her tiny sniffles betraying her pain that he had stopped reading. He simply snaked one big arm around her middle and the other stroked her hair as he stared at the ceiling.

She ignored him resolutely. This was embarrassing enough. She might as well finish.

_But you were never regarded that way to me. I adored having a sister. But you came from a world I couldn't fathom. You were dark, and dangerous. You told impossible stories in whispers of your past. You were involving and enrapturing._

_ I was entertainment,_ Brennan summed up miserably.

_But I knew Anna had spoken to you about leaving me alone. I hadn't asked her to, but she was my primary friend; friends long before you and I had our wonderful, fast burning friendship. I told her how tired I was. I told her how awkward it was to come over to your barren flat where social services had set you up, with hardly the clothes you stood up in, when our house was palatial. _

_ So she, like any good friend, intervened._

Brennan remembered only too well; she realized there was a small, hot puddle underneath one temple. She tried not to make a sound; she didn't mind Booth's arm.

_When I saw you for the last time, it was that day._

Brennan knew the letters should have been capitalized into That Day. Elise was too polite to mention her best friend's funeral.

_I didn't know how you felt about us – _and Brennan knew Elise was lumping herself with her old friends at her first college, instead of shouldering the blame herself – _coming to the service. So we sent flowers and food and figured you would tell us the time and date if you wanted us to attend._

_ You never did._

_ You never asked,_ Brennan thought back bitterly. She too, remembered Sarah's funeral. She had been devastated no one thought to just _ask _her where to go, how to help.

_But like all good things, my charmed life did, as you so adequately described it, become stained. _

_Dad died. _

Brennan felt a weight on her heart and let out her first, tiny hiccup of a sob. Elise's father, and hers for a time, had been an older man – already in his forties when Elise was born – but he was vigorous, kindly and healthy.

_And I guess I began to understand more what your frustrations with me were about. All I could think of as I walked around was that no one _knew_, no one at work understood what it was like for their father to die. No one offered helpful advice, no one was particularly patient…no one seemed to care._

_ I realized much later, of course, that they did, but they just didn't know how to help. I suppose that's my excuse Temperance, a letter almost 20 years later, to tell you that I'm sorry, but I did truly care for you._

_ I just didn't know how to make the connection, to reach out, to make myself understand._

_ I didn't know how to help._

_ Please, don't hesitate to get back in touch,_

_ Elise_

Brennan felt sick.

She folded it carefully back up and shoved it back into its envelope before putting it on the nightstand. She turned off the lamp without looking where the switch was and lay silent. The music still played softly in one corner, and she was incredibly aware of Booth's loud breathing, as if he had run up the stairs to find her.

She didn't want him to say anything, didn't want him to say sorry. But he, like Elise, seemed at a loss for words to reach out and help. She simply turned over in his arms and buried her face into the socket of his shoulder. His arms convulsed almost automatically, it seemed to her.

They lay silently for a long time.

"Now what?" Booth rumbled into her ear.

"I don't want to talk about it," she replied, her voice tinny and robotic. She had not cried the great tears she had expected to. No, this was not a letter for sobbing. This simply made her feel sick, disgusted and angry.

"Okay," he said easily. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," she said even more softly, her head, curling into his armpit, but her whole body shrimping against him.

She felt sordid, unwanted and dirty. A discarded charity case. The little girl covered in blood had been tossed into the dirt and instead of being helped up, the letter had just shrugged at her and said 'too bad.'

"I need to shower," she said. And a sense of urgency overwhelmed her. "I need to shower now."

"Are you sure you don't want me to leave?"

She could not voice the plea to stay. She violently shook her head instead.

"I'll just…lay here then."

"Get ready for bed," she told him quietly. "I'm tired."

He shot a dubious look at the couch; she knew it hurt his back. He didn't say a word though as he pressed his lips together and stood to disrobe. She didn't stay to watch, only disappeared to the other room.

The steam brought the tears closer to the surface as it sloughed away the anger and the abrasive pain the long lost answer had brought. It just hadn't been satisfactory. Hadn't been neat. She had been right all these years as she had suspected, but she took no glory in it.

She slipped into pajama pants and a sports bra before casting around for a camisole. She had forgotten one. Scowling she flicked off the bathroom light before calling to Booth:

"Keep your eyes shut."

"Okay."

By the tone of his voice he was lying through his teeth, but she didn't care. She darted quickly to her top chest of drawers and picked the first one she could grab. Usually she color coordinated for her outfit tomorrow – only needing to change her bra – but today she was hyperaware of Booth's gaze. In the dark it was even more extreme, traveling over her like a laser pointer as she came around the bed. But when she leaned over him, his eyes were shut tight once more.

He was in his slacks, which she scoffed at.

"It's not like I haven't seen you in your boxers plenty of times."

He flushed and then stood awkwardly.

"I was going to take them off in the other room."

"Shut up," she said instead and flipped back her comforter. He slid inquiringly into his spot. _The empty spot_, she forced her mind to correct. It wasn't his.

She got in next to him and turned off the light, mulishly turning on her side away from him, although that wasn't the side she slept on. She sighed irritably but didn't turn over. She knew why she didn't want to be alone: the tears, the agony. Booth kept them away, kept her feeling just a bit harassed. Which was better than suffering.

"Brennan," he said in the dark and the absolute quiet when she finally realized she would need to switch off the jazz on the speakers.

"Just shut up. I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."

"I don't."

"Okay!"

"Please stop talking."

"I was just going to say-"

"Stop."

"I-"

"Seriously…please…" and her voice wasn't as steady.

"I was just going to say I know how it feels."

"What?" she was so surprised her eyes popped back open.

"I know how it feels after you read a letter."

"Okay."

"It hurts."

"Stop."

"And I'm sorry."

"Please-"

"But she was a -"

"Please," Brennan finally just broke. "Please…just shut up." He was provoking her, she knew, into talking about it.

"How can I help?" he finally begged, and her heart wilted at the echoed question. She turned reluctantly over onto the side she usually slept on, staring at the dark outline of his face.

"Just hold me," she whispered. "And don't speak."

"Okay," he agreed. And Brennan felt the tears recede, her fears deplete, but couldn't sleep for a long time.


	16. I Have Forgot But You Have Not

**It took a long time because it had to be perfect. And I still don't know if it is. But neither are they.**

* * *

><p>Brennan twisted awake on the sheets and heard her spine crack satisfyingly several times. Her foot touched something and she yanked it back in surprise. She twisted her head on her pillow and came almost nose to nose with Booth, laying flat on his stomach, arms wended up and clutched around his pillow, mouth drooling all over her Egyptian cotton sheets. She had forgotten he was there.<p>

She sat up cautiously, unsure of how well his sniper reflexes were working, and found they were dead. She arched her back again, cracking her knuckles and pointing her toes as she blinked slowly around the room. She wondered if she could make some coffee. The clock told her it was early still, only six thirty. Yet she felt as rested as if she had slept ten hours.

The morning air was cold on her bare arms and her legs were warm underneath the covers. She shivered slightly and slid deeper into them, resting her back against her headboard, surveying her room. She sat a while, lost in thought, before her eyes snagged on the drawer by her hand.

There was one in there.

She didn't know why; it wasn't rational, but she had taken to hiding some of the remaining letters in her favorite haunts. There was one tucked in the drawer of her desk at work. Another in her glove compartment. And now one in her nightstand. The rest still lay safely in her letterbox. She couldn't, after all, let other people find them. But it still was within reach, a tantalizing siren song of something else to stare at within grasp of her snug cocoon of blankets.

She reached over, finally succumbing to the temptation and pulled it open, half hoping Booth would wake up and want breakfast. But he slept on, oblivious to her inner torment. She sighed and opened the unmarked envelope. She knew it was from someone in the lab then. No one else would write to her and not put an address on it, much less a name.

It wasn't sealed.

She shook it out and her hands shook.

It was in _his_ handwriting.

She darted a glance over again to his sleeping form. Could she possibly dare to read a letter from Booth when he was sleeping right next to her? _What better time? _A small voice asked her, _when you can finally ask the letter writer all the questions that burn you up?_ She felt something very hot and wet squirm deep in her intestines. It felt extremely unpleasant. She swallowed. She was going to put the letter back. This was too much.

To her surprise, her hands had smoothed the letter creases out. _Damn_. She scanned the page. The date was from about a month before.

_Dear Brennan_ was faintly visible in pencil before it had been rubbed out with an eraser and _Dear Bones_ scrawled over it in pen as if he couldn't make up his mind how to address her. He had stuck to the more permanent pen, but it hadn't done him any favors. The whole letter was full of crossed out portions, mistakes, lines scribbled beyond legibility no matter how hard she squinted at them until she could just make out little fragments of phrases of "you and me" and "there's no way." She was baffled about what the letter could concern. She couldn't remember writing to Booth, nor what she had said. She knew he hadn't read his letter in the shower, the fateful one from the gravedigger…the one that said…the one that told him…

She breathed a sigh of relief.

At least there was one letter he hadn't read. And if there was one letter she could have saved, it would have been that one. _Would it?_ The snide voice asked cruelly. _Wouldn't it have just been better for him to know it all?_ She swallowed. She decided she should start at the beginning, since by scanning up and down the marked over pages – for there were quite a lot of them – she could neither make cranium nor coccyx of the meaning.

_Dear Bones,_

_We've been partners a long time. More than most first marriages last, actually. _Brennan paused, wrinkling her nose. What an odd analogy to compare to. What _was_ Booth playing at?_ And I know more about you than I probably know about Jared, Cam and my own father combined. And that's saying a lot. I know how you like your coffee, which hand you use to drink it, what time you get up in the morning, what brand of pants you like to buy, how cold you like your car but how warm you like your house. I know how old you were when you got your first kiss, when you got into college, and when you first got drunk. _Brennan blinked, her finger resting on each action and her mind racing. Well that was easy. She could name each of those things about Booth too. So what?

_I never dreamed that a girl I met on a case in a classroom would be the most frustrating, irritating, pig headed person I'd ever met…and be my best friend in the process. I don't make friends easily. You can laugh, it's okay. I know I'm good at sports, and I'm good at shooting. I'm a 'good time' at the water cooler they may say. (That means I'm well liked Bones.) _She blinked and her lips twisted into a smile that he knew her so well. _I'm a good guy. I'm a easy going. Fun. But I'm also not...you know._ Brennan was baffled. She didn't.

_But no one really knows me, no one is really friends with me the way we're close friends. I don't have any guy friends I hang out with to go out to drinks with, or go to the gym with, or go shooting with. I was always the boss. Always nodded to but never invited out. The only people who have become my true friends…are through you. Are Hodgins and Wendell and even…hell I'll admit it…Sweets. But it was _you_ who brought me to them, you who made that connection with people I would have never connected with. And it was you who I befriended first. _

_I never thought that could happen. I never thought I could be friends – just friends – with a girl. I mean, sure, Cam and I were friends for a long time, since we were kids, just nineteen, but there was always the rolling around the bed part too. _

Brennan felt her stomach turn sour. Booth didn't need to so cavalierly pen that. A huge portion after that was crossed out and she squinted, trying to read what he had written about his and Cam's relationship that he didn't want her to read, but it was effectively scribbled.

_But…we cooled it off because it…well it sucked. Not that it sucked in…you know what I mean! It sucked because we were too similar and it made everything so complicated and both of us so angry all the time. But with you we just started where it took Cam and I years to get to._

Brennan felt something like lead poisoning slowly start to drip through her veins like an iv. She realized what Booth was saying. That he just wanted to be friends. That he liked their relationship as a friendship.

She was a fool.

She almost crumpled the letter and threw it from her with a sob, and she realized her nose was completely stopped up within seconds. Instead, she blinked up at the early morning light creeping down in filtered patterns down her wall, just touching the top of her dresser. _What an idiot Temperance Brennan_, she berated herself, touching the back of her wrist to her nose, searching for a nonexistent drip. _At least he never read that last letter_. And she was suddenly very, very glad he hadn't.

She sucked in a few more brave breaths. _You wanted him to hurt you, _the snide voice continued. _You wanted him to finish it. So read._ She did.

_I never thought I could have a best friend like you; smart and independent. You never want to be around me. In high school, all my friends hung around me all the time. I was that idiot that lead them around. Now it's me begging to be around you, to take you out to lunch, to be at your lab, to stand where you work. I've slowly shifted my life to be around you._

_That's not true,_ Brennan wanted to argue, but deep down she knew it was. How many times a day was Booth at the lab? And how few times a week did she show up at the Hoover building?

_I'd be by your side whenever you call, in the dead of night, or in the middle of a case. It doesn't matter. I would always, always come for you. _Brennan felt the tiniest drip touch her knuckle. She knew Booth was picking his words for her, for _her_. For her deepest heart, for her deepest fears. He knew she was afraid of being left behind again. She shifted her long lashed gaze just a bit, knowing the blurs on the end of them were balanced there precariously. They cleared as his form did, burning her skin as his image burned into her brain, the back of his head so serenely sleeping in the dawning light on her coverlet.

_So it's baffled me why you never did. You never called. _

Brennan's hand collected more drips.

_It took me a while to realize this wasn't because you didn't…_more scribbles. _It was because you couldn't. You didn't understand. You __still __don't understand, do you Brennan? Do you Bones?_

_Understand what?_ She wanted to scream. But she was breathing faster. She was smart, and her brain was racing through the list of very short possibilities. And she was rejecting them because they were very, very, very impossible. Or at least highly improbable.

_And yet…_the snide voice said, _it would explain it all. It would explain why he read them. It would explain why he mailed them. It would explain why he…why he stayed when he could have left. It would explain why he tortured himself and you didn't need to, not once, lift a finger to scream at him because you saw how much agony he was putting himself through._

"No," she whispered aloud.

_Come on,_ the letter snapped impatiently. _It's so obvious. Everyone knows, how can you really not? And the thing is that you do. You do! I know you do. Deep down you do and that's why you are so angry. That's what Gordon-Gordon saw. That's what he wouldn't tell me. I'm not a smart guy Bones, but even I figured that out. _

_You KNOW and you won't tell me. It's why you ripped the letter out of my hand in the bathtub-_

A horrible feeling in her stomach spiraled at war with a heady sensation. She might throw up. She might pee herself. She flipped the covers back wildly, wondering if a sprint to the bathroom might cover both options.

_-it's why you won't look me in the eye. It's why you won't talk to me. Why you won't forgive me. It's because you feel the same way. It's because you know._

_Just say it!_ She wanted to cry, to rage, to die. She understood, finally, why Booth had wandered through Cam and their friendship first. He had been gathering the courage to say what he really wanted to say. He had to trace his friendship with, their partnership the way it had truly unfolded.

_It's the way we felt together, crashing together so often. A car wreck waiting to happen, you think, but Brennan you're WRONG. You're just…you're wrong. I know you think you're the smartest person in the room all the time, but trust me on this one. This time I'm the smartest person in the room._

Brennan twisted electrically on the bed. How could he have known? Could he have known? Could he have perfectly have timed his arrival – was he – were his manipulations so…She got ahold of herself. She was completely paranoid. Booth slept peacefully on leaving a small puddle of drool on her sheets.

_But it isn't going to be a car crash. We'll crash into each other – we always do – but it's going to be a crash like stars colliding_, _an explosion into something greater. Something…I don't know…white hot…you're the one good at_ metaphor. Incoherent scribbles._ It's amazing. I just see it. I just… _

A black smear across the page, of rage, of loss, of Booth's anguished attempts to convey something more. And that touching desperation imparted, perhaps, more to her than any amount of his words could have.

_Brennan…I just…I just… love you._

And it was the first time he had ever put it on paper. It wasn't the first time he had ever said it (to her shame), but it was the first time it had caused her to feel so sick and excited she wanted to throw up and shout at the same time.

_I love you and if you don't think you feel the same well that's just complete bullshit._

Brennan actually laughed a tiny snort around a glob of snot, an unpleasant, ugly crying sound that matched her eyes. She put her hand back to her face and then with a disgusted face found a tissue for it. She laughed again at the absurdity of it all, and at her usually fanatical hygiene destroyed by Booth once again. There were no more scribbles now, just bold, slashing, sure strokes, as if Booth had been possessed in a manic light of understanding glory.

_ Because I know you do. I know that the letter was addressed to me. I know it was from the day the gravedigger trapped you. I know that it was written in adrenaline. I didn't get to read more than the salutation. I didn't get to read any of it. But I know that the feelings have existed since then and that's good enough for me. I don't know what possible motives you had to turn me down at the Lincoln Memorial – _fear, Brennan wanted tell him – _but it was stupid and it made you run so far I didn't see you for a year. _

_Seven months, _she corrected mentally.

_But now we have another chance, a better chance, to build something from scratch. To build a new relationship from something broken. It's maybe better this way. To not try to bend our relationship, to try to twist it into something and force it into something it's not. Because it might snap, it might break. But I already did that, didn't I?_

_ Out of love,_ she realized. She sat up straighter, creeping realization starting to tingle at her toes with the sun. _Would this have happened…this brokenness…anyway? In any case because this was how their new relationship had to start? _Booth certainly thought so.

_And Temperance Brennan don't you dare be scared. Don't you dare. _She stiffened her spine indignantly. He had no right to tell her what to do and what not to do. And yet, even now, that was what he was doing.

_You've faced down serial killers, child murderers, gunpoint, the mob, don't you dare be scared of this chance. You were born for this chance, and my life was leading up to this chance. We had to fall apart to fall together. To crash together._

_ He honestly believes that,_ she gulped. Him and his stupid religion. But she wasn't like that. She wasn't gullible.

_And it isn't predetermined, or destiny, or fate, or anything like that. Even if I believe that, I know it's not like that for you. It's fact Bones. It's just how it is. This is how our partnership develops. You taught me nothing is static. We are always changing, nothing is sound. If we don't grow, if we don't evolve, we decay. Our partnership was dying, is dying. If you don't take this step…it will end. _

_ You know it, and I know it. It was ending before. It was slow and painful. And we both felt it while we dated other people, our eyes for each other. Our morning-afters weren't spent in their arms…they were spent with each other at the diner…ranking them, rating them, talking together, gossiping together, wishing desperately it had been…wishing for me at least it had been you in my bed last night. Not someone else. Not Katherine, not Hannah. _

_ Booth- _Brennan broke off blinking. He had it right. How had she missed it? She had been selectively blind to their breaking relationship because she didn't want to see it breaking. She wanted to think it was the one stable thing in her life. The one stable thing forever. But of course it couldn't last forever. How selfish could she be? But how heartbroken would she be if he had left to get married? But how could she keep Booth to herself without giving him... _everything_? Every part of her? And everything she had was in the letterbox. Every. Last. Thing.

Except one. There was just a bit more.

_So don't say no now. Don't turn away out of fear of what could be great, or else you lose…everything. Don't say "let's go back to the way it was" because let's be honest, we grew up. We grew out of friendship. It was a phase and we grew into partners and that became something deeper and so…intangible and unnamed. So let's move into something real. Something named. Let's crash together finally. Or let's spiral apart…but that's irreparable. It's your choice._

_ But I'll wait for you. I promised I'd be by your side whenever you call. So please…Brennan._

_ Love me. __Call me._

_Crash into me._

_ Love, __(Finally, love!)_

_ Booth_

For a full minute, Brennan let the letter fall in her lap, hands motionless, staring at the sunlight filtering through the blinds, into her mind, illuminating her room, and her heart. She folded it delicately and finally wiped the back of her hand one last time over her cheeks and slid back down her place in bed that was still warm. Her head met the cool side of her pillow and she snuggled against it. She barely thought for half a minute before her heart was hammering so hard she was sweating before curling up against his body heat, sliding her hand over the small of his back, tucking her chin into the fold of his neck and his scapulae.

He convulsed with a sleepy grumble.

"What?" he sniffed, rubbing his face against the pillow. She hitched a brave breath and bit her lip before hiking her knee up into his soft side so he grunted and flipped over onto his hip and she tucked herself into the space with a quick scoot, faster than he could know what was happening and crashed into him breathlessly, her hand tangling into his hair, her tongue finding his confused bottom lip and pulling it into hers.

"Bones...what…" he began with a confused garble.

She barely broke away a breath. "You promised to be by my side whenever I called. It was the dead of night Booth…" she shoved the letter into his searching hand under the covers and his eyes went wide. She closed hers in response and leaned back in.

"But now it's morning."

She barely registered the sound of the paper hitting the floor.


	17. When I Am Lost, You Have Not Lost Me

**Long break. Apologies. Insert humorous chapter as recompense. Review? Excellent.**

* * *

><p>"I can't show up looking like this," Booth hissed, ducking down low as if the lab doors wouldn't register the two inches difference in his height and whoosh open anyway.<p>

"Why not?" she sniffed delicately, not looking at him.

He muscled her into a corner of the hallway before they turned the final route. "Because I'm in yesterday's clothes," he growled. "And somebody's going to notice."

She caught her breath and saw his pupils dilate with primal lust, latching onto the pulse she could feel fluttering at the base of her trachea. She ignored him and shoved her olecranon, the elbow end of the ulna, into the soft side of his kidney. His face went slowly puce and he staggered aside.

"No one will notice," she informed him sweetly.

"Did I mention I like it rough?" he wheezed from behind.

She turned slowly, an eyebrow arched. "Booth," she warned him. He was taking it too far. They had engaged in coitus. Once. Twice if she counted the other thing. Which he obviously did. Was it enough to change everything?

_Yes. _If she was honest with herself, and Temperance Brennan was nothing if not honest to a fault, yes it changed everything.

"I'm sorry," he was instantly contrite, and instantly there, his hands all over her hair, in her face the way she hated, the way she craved. She turned her jaw mulishly away, tugging back.

"Not here," she whispered.

"Well if I can't have you, and I can't have work, then I don't need to be here," Booth dimpled cheekily. "I'm going to get changed. I'll be back in half an hour."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. But I don't see what your big insistence on this is."

"People are going to find out."

"Eventually," she said evenly. "Does that scare you?"

He paused. "You shock the hell outta me Bones. Every day."

She canted her head. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Nah. It's just…different. Most people…I got them figured out."

"I'm hardly most people," she sniffed. He grinned and she was left to figure out his answer.

* * *

><p>"Dr. Brennan!" Cam called, "Would you come consult?"<p>

Brennan stuck her head out of her office. "On my way," she shouted, before grabbing latex free gloves from under her desk. "And I'm hardly a consultant," she muttered to herself as she got closer to the platform. She missed the sour glance Hodgins gave to Cam along with a crisp five dollar bill.

"You win," he sighed.

"Like I said," Cam crinkled, "I can get under anyone's skin. Not just yours."

"What a gift to be proud of," Angela observed.

Cam wilted. "It's why I'm alone." The other two froze, their mockery suspended as Brennan hiked up the stairs to the platform.

"No, no," the couple rushed to assure Cam simultaneously and Brennan froze, searching the ground for what she was about to step on.

"No…what?" she asked cautiously.

"Never mind," Cam said wearily. "It's nothing. We've got a new victim here."

"A little…" Brennan wrinkled her nose but not in distaste, "old…for the body snatchers."

"Not their MO," agreed Cam. "Just another regular old homicide come to call."

"Joy," Angela chirruped, staring at what used to be a face of skeletonized decay.

"Looks like our guy here suffered from…" Hodgins crinkled up his nose, "lead poisoning?"

"What makes you say that?" Angela asked with a rising warning in her voice that didn't brook for conspiracy.

"The tests came back super high-"

"But also his optic nerve," Cam jumped in, pointing at photos on the lab screen. "Look, here, and here. They show signs of strain."

"That much tissue is enough to be basically meaningless to me." Brennan scanned the bones. "His orbital cavities do not show such signs. But they wouldn't."

"It must have been severely painful for him to see," Cam mused.

Brennan canted her head. "One of the effects of lead poisoning _is_ an inflammation of the optic nerve, which causes those who have it to see bright haloes around light sources. In order to produce the striking yellow effects in his 'Sunflowers' paintings, Van Gogh used Naples yellows, a pigment containing lead. Since in his later paintings, Van Gogh painted bright haloes around the stars and sun, it is likely that he was suffering from lead poisoning caused by actually ingesting the pigments he used."

"See, we should have learned _that_ in art school," sighed Angela.

"What _did_ you learn?" asked Brennan bluntly.

Hodgins chuckled darkly.

"Gross," muttered Cam.

"You wouldn't be saying that if Angie had a go at you," he promised fervently.

"Cam's not my type," Angela flicked a piece of her hair over her shoulder dismissively.

"Hey!" Cam protested.

"You are sexually flexible," reasoned Brennan.

"Yeah, and you said I was pretty the other day," Cam countered.

"No, I said the dress you were wearing was pretty," Angela corrected. Cam's face fell.

"You don't think I'm pretty?"

"Sweetie," sighed Angela.

"I think you're pretty," Hodgins vouched. "I think you're sexy."

"Yes," corroborated Brennan. "You do have a certain sexual allure which I suppose is why you wear skin tight clothing, which of course, is lost on all of us in monogamous relationships."

Cam colored. Angela's eyebrows rose. She opened her mouth to ask if Brennan considered herself in that pairing but closed it as Cam beat her to speaking.

"It isn't for _you_. It's because I…because…I…because I know I look good."

"You do," Angela assured her.

"But you don't think I'm pretty?"

"You're pretty Cam," Angela sighed, as if throwing her the bone cost her great pains. Cam's face relaxed.

"Booth thinks you're pretty," Brennan reiterated. "You two have had sexual-"

"You may stop," Cam held up a hand. "I've had enough ego stoking for one day."

"You asked for it," Angela sniped waspishly, her cheekbones flushed and red.

"Do you think Brennan's pretty? Because I think you two would hit it off." Hodgins stage whispered, regarding Brennan with a contemplative look in his eye she had never seen. Angela shot him a withering glare.

"Sweetie, I don't think Booth would approve if we had Brennan over for dinner." Brennan blinked at them.

"I would love to come over for dinner."

Hodgins' face lit up like a Christmas tree. "See? She agrees! She would love to! You like Angela right Dr. B?"

"Of course I do," Brennan said with some amusement.

"You think she's pretty, right?"

"Oh God," Cam said, pinching her nose between her fingers. "This is not happening on the forensic platform right in front of me. This just isn't. Not between people I know. This is a horrible, horrible dream."

"It's just dinner Cam," Brennan said dismissively, if obtusely.

"Jack, stop it," Angela was a roman candle.

"Angie…" he wheedled.

"I don't see the problem," Brennan continued.

"Booth would shoot you," Angela said still more loudly.

"But it would be worth it," Hodgins said fervently, his eyes shooting between Brennan and Angela. "It would be the most glorious moment of my life."

"I think I'm going to crawl under this lab table and die," groaned Cam, actually clutching the side of the table and crouching down so she didn't have to make eye contact with anyone.

"Hodgins stop it!" hissed Angela.

"Okay, okay," Hodgins chuckled good naturedly, "but it's a standing invitation, Dr. B. Just in case you ever feel…needed. And we know you haven't been fed in a while…"

"I feel very full now," Brennan shrugged, "but if I do get hungry-"

Hodgins coughed into his hands to stuff all his giggles into his elbow. Cam actually groaned into her knees. Angela came around the table to hug Brennan.

"Stop talking sweetie. Stop talking to my very sick and perverted husband."

"It's not sick and perverted!" squeaked Hodgins. "It's a beautiful thing! You yourself love your sexuality!"

"Wait…" Brennan squinted slowly. "What are we talking about? I thought you wanted to have dinner."

"Yes sweetie," Angela sighed. "Jack is always hungry."

Cam sat straight down on the floor and hid her face in her knees.

"Bones! What the hell is going on here?"

Booth bounded up onto the forensic platform with a beeping swipe of his card.

"Apparently Cam is having some sort of psychological meltdown, and Hodgins is starving," she stated succinctly.

Cam and Hodgins both started laughing in a horribly uncontrolled way.

"Oh for God's sake," snapped Angela, blood red.

Booth wiped the inside of his eye with his middle finger in a very unsubtle gesture. "Ange?" he asked instead, taking it from a more accredited source.

"Now don't blow anything," she soothed, patting him gently on the arm and then shuffling two steps back as he muscled up to skulking height, "but Jack was just fooling around."

"What?"

"Just being silly."

"Doing what?"

"Hitting on Brenan."

"_What_?"

Hodgins squeaked and lost control of his laughter as if laughing more loudly would help his purple faced case.

"I swear, I didn't mean anything by it. She wasn't going for it anyway."

"Is that what you were doing?" Brennan asked slowly, "When you invited me over to dinner with you and Angela?"

"WHAT?" roared Booth.

Cam laid flat on her back and laughed so hard she looked like she was having convulsions. She clutched her stomach painfully.

"It was a joke!" squealed Hodgins.

"Hodgins is an asshole," verified Angela. "I wouldn't do that to Brennan."

Booth canted his head. "You wouldn't?" he said out of the side of his mouth.

Angela screeched. "Oh God! You're as bad as he is! Come on Booth!"

"_Oh_," said Brennan suddenly. "Are you all referring to having a sexual liaison with three interested parties?"

Cam, whose laughter had ascended into the silent pitch, let loose a snort of derisive laughter. Hodgins whooped and scooted to the other side of the dead body in case Booth wanted to throttle him.

"Because that would not go amiss," Brennan continued. Cam and Hodgins broke off mid giggle to stare at her. Booth goggled at her too, his head drooping forward as if suddenly too heavy for his neck.

"What?"

"It would be incredibly awkward with people I work with and am friends with," Brennan continued, "but I feel comfortable enough with my sexuality to explore the option."

The sound of her setting the forceps back onto the steel lab table was deafening. She turned sweetly to Booth. "You came with details on this case?"

"I…uh…uh…came…" he fumbled, and Cam erupted at the timing and word choice. Even Angela cracked a grin, leaning down to offer Cam a hand up, who took it gratefully as Booth shot her a death glare.

"How about we talk in my office?" Brennan suggested coolly.

"Okay," Booth finally found his tongue and his feet as he followed her down the stairs, only having to use the railings with one hand.

She shut the door.

"What was that?" he exploded, his words as loud and heated as he'd like to be.

"What?"

"That little show? That you'd like a threesome?"

"I would, someday, like to try that."

"Someday?"

Brennan smiled shyly up at him and took a tentative step closer. "Someday Booth. But not today. Today I just…want to keep you to myself." She leaned in halfway and waited for him, but he kept her waiting, staring down at her through those impossibly black eyes, disappointment and desperation warring down at her.

"Not here, remember?" he mocked callously.

She felt regret slash across her features and schooled them back to neutrality. She pulled away without a flicker of regret and crossed her arms. "Of course."

"I'm sorry," he breathed after thirty seconds of stiff silence had marched thunderously between them. "It's just hard when you go and make…statements like that."

"Like what?"

"About your sexuality. Like I'm not enough for you."

Hurt surprise. "That's what you think?"

"What am I supposed to think?" he exploded. "It's been a day. A _day_."

"Not even a day. Not even six hours."

"See?" he gestured wildly. "Not even six hours."

"And we're having our first fight," she sighed. "Maybe this was…"

"Don't you say it," he rushed in, tucking her up close to him, pinning her fists down by her side. "Don't you dare say it. I said crash into me. I didn't say fall in love. I said _crash_ into it. There's bound to be some friction at first until the dust settles."

"Your analogy is not asymmetric." It took him a moment to work that out, but she appreciated his effort.

"Thank you," he managed at last.

"Friction," she repeated.

"Yeah, Bones. It's when two things make sparks because they rub each other the wrong way." She raised her eyebrows at him, and twisted her wrists in his hold.

"Or the right way," he amended and pulled her onto her own couch.


	18. And If I Have To Crawl

She knew it instantly, the way he darkened her doorstep, a thundercloud waiting to burst.

"Booth? What's wrong?"

He held up his hand ironically and she frowned at him quizzically. He sighed, and pulled the poker chip out of his pocket, reminding her there were still people listening in on their lives. She shrugged irritably, letting him know very clearly where he could stick the transmitter.

"Booth?" she touched his face but he shrugged her off as if her touch burned. She felt the flash of hurt dance across her features. He looked as if he was sorry but she turned away before he could reach out. She was sick of everything always being about her anyway.

Instead he opened his briefcase on her desk. Heart hammering, she waited as he rummaged through the papers before throwing one her way.

"Did you read this?" He knew before she even caught and looked down she had. His tone and body language suggested as much. Brennan wished sometimes she could turn off her brain.

She delicately plucked the pages he had tossed at her. They lay wrinkled and worn together among a sea of field reports, the only hand written pages fallen in a fire of typed ones. She thumbed to the last page and slid her eyes closed: _Jared_.

"Where did you get this?"

"It was on my desk."

Brennan remembered. She had been reading Jared's letter in Booth's office; he had come in and swept _all _the papers off his desk, including Jared's letter.

"Booth I –"

"Can you really Brennan? Can you really explain?" he was storming now, having broken quietly and dangerously out of her line of sight. He rained down on her relentlessly. "I think my whole life I'm protecting him…that I'm saving him…but then he goes and writes a letter like this."

"I know Booth," she said it quietly, standing in the eye of the storm, unsure of where to put her hands, if she should kiss him still or let him rage. She was not good for him. Their relationship was so uneven.

"I should have been better," Booth seethed, his teeth grinding so loudly she could hear him four feet away. She stared at him unblinking, unsure of what to do. She sank to her couch, peering over the back of it for Angela or Cam, or someone to come and rescue her from his onslaught of himself. He was breaking in front of her and she didn't know how to stop it. She wasn't even trying.

"He's your brother Booth." Brennan winced. She was stating facts as if saying them aloud would somehow solve the situation.

"Exactly," her partner snarled. He spun on his toes, towering over her on the couch and Brennan pulled a pillow in front of her heart as if to protect it, although she felt silly even as she did it. He wasn't going to hurt her; only himself. She mutely held the cushion out to him, unsure of what else to give him. He took it just as silently, suddenly defeated and sad. He stood, a bowed angel, planes of slumped shoulders and scars hidden by his white-collar shirt, his white-collar job.

He ran his thumbs over the surface of the pillow blindly searching the surface for the words he was groping for. "I was supposed to take all the…and he wasn't supposed to see. He was supposed to stay a kid. He wasn't supposed to see anything. I did it all for him. And he still…he still got like me…" He chucked the pillow back on the couch with the last bit of anger left before throwing himself down after it. His head rolled to hers, eyes begging, finally raining.

Brennan was mute and dry, confused in the midst of his onslaught. Jared shouldn't have written the letter. He should have let Booth save him.

"And if he…" Booth stopped to swallow it down, his face convulsing with an ugly painful twist, suddenly spasming into anger, fist clenching by Brennan's thigh. Brennan glanced down at it between them in the crevice of the tan couch cushions before flicking her gaze back up to Booth's face. "…What was it all _for?_ Why the hell did I let him beat the crap out of me for? I was doing it for Jared. I was protecting him…for the better life…and it turns out it was all complete and utter _bullshit. _My whole life is a fucking lie."

"No it's not," she immediately countered, but her mind was buzzing blankly. She wished Cam or Angela would come in. He loved her but he shouldn't. She was smart in everything but the things that mattered. She didn't know what to say to him. Everything he was saying made perfect sense to her. Yet the way he was staring at her, with a sort of desperate clarity, hoping against hope she would lie to him, was rending a damaging path through her pulmonary tract.

"You…" she stuttered and had to try again, staring anywhere but at his face, cracking beneath the weight of his grief, the lightning lashing it in spasms of anguish at random intervals as the memories flitted across it unbidden.

"You stood up when you thought you had to," she said in a mumbling sort of voice. "That makes you…better. Better than him."

"Doesn't feel like it," he rasped tilting his head back into the ring of halogenic lights.

"You…Booth you…you had something to believe in."

His head rolled slowly towards hers, his eyes shuttering against the light in squinted disbelief. She smiled tremulously, knowing what he was going to say long before he said it.

"Are you…lecturing me on belief? You…the unbeliever?"

She reached out her fingers to find his cross medallion beneath his shirt. "There's more than one kind of belief," she informed him coolly. She dropped her hand and he dropped his head with a reluctant, broken grin. Neither mentioned the tear that he licked hastily from the corner of his mouth.

"So that's it, your big deduction huh?" he scoffed at the ceiling, his pupils contracting to pinpricks, his brown irises eating at them, and Brennan knew it was to burn the tears out of him. To force the sun to come out. "Belief kept me sane? So now it was all worth it."

Brennan hated when he drawled like that, all smug and falsely ingratiating. He wasn't hers then. He was far away and cruel, faintly sarcastic as his teeth glinted at her more than his eyes, refusing to make contact. She dropped her gaze so he wouldn't feel obligated. "Belief Booth, is what kept your little brother alive. Because you believed you were doing something bigger for him. You could have given up. And you would have gotten thrashed the same."

"Jared doesn't care," he shrugged. "He might has well have according to this letter. His childhood was all a lie."

It was Brennan's turn to give him his own faintly sarcastic smile back. He looked startled to see it on her face, ripping him out of a black cloud of nightmares. "Booth, he may have suffered, but you faced a war. Every day you were a soldier."

His mouth drew grim. "And then I became a soldier. What does that say about me?"

Brennan shrugged. "I don't think it says anything about you. I hate psychology."

Booth gave her a tiny half smile. "So my belief in what, myself, is what saved Jared?"

"Yes," she said without blinking.

He didn't laugh this time.

"Do you believe in me Bones?" He sat up as he spoke, slowly, not dangerously but a thundercloud rolling off a mountaintop, leaving it soaked and its trees broken.

She paused, surveying him.

"I believe in beer," she finally sighed.

Booth laughed abruptly, taken aback. She had run through every possible option in her head but discarded the responses as too trite. She smiled coyly instead. "I believe in beer because you always tell me to have a lager when I'm depressed."

"I think this is a bit different," Booth prevaricated with a wry half grin.

Brennan raised her eyebrows.

"Really? I don't see how. Are you suggesting you shouldn't follow your own advice? That because I am female I should somehow be subordinate to your advice?"

"No. No! Bones…come on. Now that's just mean. You're pulling all this feminism crap because you want to make me feel bad about not getting a beer with you at the Founding Fathers."

A graceful eyebrow rose over a blue eye. "You think feminism is crap?"

"Uh…no. No, not what I meant…you're doing this on purpose! Damn it! Stop with your smartness…and…and your anthropology! Just leave me alone damn it!" But he was laughing as she got to her feet and he allowed her to pull him up.

"I'll even drive," she swore solemnly, "seeing as you're such a big proponent of feminism."

"Ugh," groaned Booth, dragging his feet, but he dangled the keys above her head nonetheless. Brennan didn't mention the traces of tears still glistening around the hard lines of his mouth as she tucked herself in next to him and they headed for the bar.

* * *

><p>"No, no Brennan I can't go in," Booth dug in his heels at the reflections visibly refracted in the glass door.<p>

"Booth, they're our friends."

"Sweets is there. And Cam. She'll know something's wrong for sure. And then there's Angela. She's like, psychic."

"There's no such thing as psychics Booth," Brennan corrected him severely.

"Well whatever, all of them are ridiculously observant."

"Even Hodgins," noted Brennan.

"Yeah," agreed Booth peevishly. "Even the bug man. So let's leave well enough alone."

"Hey Booth, Dr. Brennan," came a voice from behind them. It was Wendell. A step behind him was Arastoo. Both were in sweatpants and short sleeves. It struck Brennan as unprofessional, despite the fact they weren't in the lab.

"Where are you guys coming from?" Booth asked in spite of himself.

"Arastoo recruited me for his mosque's baseball team," Wendell said with a good-natured grin.

Arastoo hitched a guilty half smile in place, glancing inside as if to check who was there. "I'm hoping that by reeling in Wendell I can entice Dr. Hodgins to play as well. I've been badgering him forever."

"Are you allowed to have non-Muslims on your team?" Brennan asked bluntly.

"Bones," hissed Booth as he automatically held the door for Wendell and Arastoo. Brennan ducked under his arm and even though he tried to grab her arm to hold her back, she was already through and he had to follow.

They were greeted with a hail of cheers from the already seated table.

"It's fine Dr. Brennan," Arastoo threw over his shoulder as he slid into a vacated chair by Cam.

Booth went to order and Brennan found chairs for the two of them. She placed them a little bit outside of the circle, to Angela's amusement, but thankfully, not to her commentary. Brennan had a carefully worked out alibi – that she and Booth were working on their 'relationship.' Although, strictly speaking, Brennan realized with a bit of a blush, this was not untrue. Her and Booth's newfound romance was such a well-guarded secret, even she forgot it sometimes.

Booth slunk into his chair with a pint for her set on the table. Brennan knew it was more out of polite company than for her actual taste; she hated the beers Booth favored. He simply wanted it to look like he wasn't drinking for two.

Brennan had been finishing off the remains of Angela's drink, who had known from the get go what Booth's not so cunning ploy was, when the first strains hit her ears. It was jarringly familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time, because she wasn't acquainted with rap music.

"I know this one," she muttered. She tapped Angela's arm insistently. "I know this one," she told her.

Angela rolled her eyes. "Who doesn't?"

Booth laughed a bit.

"What?" Brennan accused him.

"It's Parker's dance song."

"What?"

"You know, the one where we helped him learn to –"

"Oh Booth let's dance!"

The table had gone deafeningly silent at those words. Brennan glanced around and flushed a bit, but not as brilliantly crimson as Booth had.

"Absolutely not."

"Oh come on Booth," she begged. "I know this one."

"Yeah come on Agent Booth," added Sweets.

"Go Booth!" cheered Angela.

"Go get 'em Seeley."

"I will murder you all," Booth swore, "if you think I am leaving this chair."

"I'll dance by myself then," Brennan huffed, and got up, tapping the metronomic rhythm on her pant leg and bobbing her head, trying to find the beat.

"Oh good Lord," Booth rolled his eyes. "It's five, six, seven, eight." And on that he jumped up too.

"Forward, cross, back, kick, bump, bump, samba!" coached Booth into her ear. She grinned delightedly and leaned into them when they got to grind, their tension tenfold more sexual now that they could actually act upon the emotions. She could hear him _groan_ beneath her.

"Ow, ow," cat called Angela, unaware of their predicament. "You get him Brennan."

Brennan turned her face to apologize to Booth and found her mouth inches from his. They kept dancing for those split few seconds in stasis, almost touching before pulling away, the agony of knowing how much better it was to crash together than to fall apart.

When the song was over, the entire bar burst into applause, and they got drinks on the house. Booth's eyes were dilated with lust as he slumped beneath his corner of the table, his nose almost level with it.

"Do you feel better?" Brennan asked him sweetly as she passed by his ear, pretending to have dropped her straw.

Booth shot her a murderous glare but heaved a sigh.

"Yes. Beer works."

"Dancing too," she reminded him reproachfully.

"You know what else would work?" he growled, but Brennan leaned away.

"Stop it," she muttered. "There are too many people here, and like you said, Angela might actually be psychic."

"Okay, then let's talk about something else. Something boring."

"The case."

His face darkened with frustration. He patted his pocket for the poker chip but she shrugged, gesturing to the speakers overhead. "Can they hear us over that? I don't know why we didn't just come here before."

Booth rolled his head on his neck, lolling like a bendable cherry stem.

"Okay," he muttered finally. "But keep it low."

They talked for half an hour and by that time some of the lab had weaned out. Hodgins and Angela both left to take care of Michael. Wendell went home to work on his graduate schoolwork. It was only Cam, Arastoo and Sweets now, the three of whom weren't paying the least bit of attention to the partners.

"What I can't figure out…" Brennan mused at last, "…is how the killers followed Cam in the first place."

Cam's head swiveled, ears pricked, at the sound of her name. She leaned in to join their conversation, leaving the boys debating Star Wars.

"When?" she asked, playing catch up.

"In Kentucky," Brennan clarified. "That's where this _has_ to have all started."

"You think it started with _me?_" Cam asked in some surprise.

"What if…" Booth was slightly drunk by now, and neither of his friends was fooled by his 'masking it well.' "…what if the cave in…wasn't…a cave in?"

"What would it be?" scoffed Brennan dismissively.

"No, hang on, Booth could be onto something," Cam cautioned, eyes wide.

Brennan leaned over the bar a moment. "Sorry, could I have the remote? Thanks." She pushed the up volume on the football game. Cam was distracted.

"You like football?"

"Long story," sighed Booth.

"We're being bugged," summed Brennan succinctly.

"Or not that long," shrugged Booth.

"Oh my God," Cam gasped. "Have you gone to the police?"

"No," Booth looked insulted. "This is our only advantage."

Cam rolled her eyes. "You would say that. Go back to the part where the cave in isn't a cave in."

"You think it was deliberate?" Brennan deduced, finally catching onto their shared assumption. "Well, if he followed you running…who was the last one to see you before you went?"

"I was," Booth frowned. "What are you saying?"

Brennan shrugged. "Nothing. I was wrong. The killer wasn't following on foot. Means it was premeditated. Cam was picked out ahead of time, probably because she was alone."

"Did you run everyday?" Booth asked worriedly.

Cam stared into her empty vodka soda wistfully before tipping the ice on her tongue just to buy time. "Yes."

"Camille!" Booth barked.

"Seeley," she sighed. "It's not like I was born into this body."

Booth's eyes flickered and both women groaned out loud with unappreciated noises.

"I'm _sorry,"_ he snapped, "but Cam, have you seen what you're wearing?"

Cam sniffed. "It's the same sort of thing I wear everyday."

Booth rolled his eyes. "Exactly."

"Could we get back to the part of the case where I had a murderer stalking me in Kentucky?"

"Well…" Brennan furrowed her eyes in concentration. "What did you differently that day?"

"I…" Cam frowned in concentration. "I went running…I saw a bandana that was relevant to the case…so I went in after it…"

"Easy to plant," huffed Booth, waving his hand. "So easy."

"And then what?" asked Cam skeptically, "It's all humpty dumpty?"

"For us too," Brennan was thinking aloud. "When we were all in there…the second cave in…it wasn't an accident. There were trained technicians supporting the tunnel. It shouldn't have just collapsed like that because four people 'walked' in. That should have been able to support EMTs and a stretcher and -"

"Say that again," interrupted Booth.

Cam zinged between them, watching worriedly.

"I said it should have supported more than just people walking in it."

"No the other part."

"Should have supported a stretcher being rolled through it. And EMTs walking in and out of it. Cam was injured Booth, don't you remember? Booth?"

Booth's face had gone all dreamy. "The EMTs," he said. "Someone who knew the site well…someone who knew us well…someone who would be first on the scene…first responder…who could orchestrate it all…but not a police officer…"

"It's an EMT," breathed Cam.

"And I think I know which one!" Brennan interjected excitedly.

"And that's why Anakin in episodes II and III displays patterns of instability and impulsivity that make him an obvious candidate for borderline personality disorder," Sweets finished impressively with a big grin on his face. Arastoo yanked his hand off his fist, turning back to their conversation as if hoping for a reason to live.

"So what are we talking about?"


	19. Will You Crawl Too?

**I know this is the longest I've ever gone without updating. This is for a variety of reasons 1) being life transitions/outside influences, 2) to me, at least, Bones has lost some of the original, snappy dialogue, sharp plotlines, and dark, deep character development that helped it stand out. It's gotten hard to watch for me, ME, the most avid of fans (and fanfiction writer!) So I've decided to finish out this story and perhaps retire. Or maybe just take a break until I can find that level of dedication again. But I will finish – you guys have been the best audience, the most rewarding, wonderful, and faithful readers (those who are still here even at this long/drawn out end). Thank you, sincerely, and with love. -K (P.S. The original letter is in chapter 16.)**

* * *

><p>"Brennan what are you doing?" Cam so rarely called her Brennan she almost stopped for a moment, her fast pace faltering before she surged forward even faster.<p>

"I told you," she called back over her shoulder. "I need to get some _work done_," she emphasized miming holding a phone to her ear. Cam had so recently come into their secret of being bugged.

"Is it in a file?" Booth was right behind her, growling in her ear, raising goosebumps at all the wrong times. She caught a surprised glance from Cam, whose short legged stride was leaving her slightly behind them, so that she was able to catch Booth's lingering brush down her side. Brennan nudged him impatiently with an angry glare his way. He looked not the least bit contrite.

"It's only Cam," he muttered.

"It's only Cam what?" Cam huffed, clacking her way forward a few paces, looking annoyed. Brennan was impressed in spite herself that Cam could move as fast as they could in heels that high.

"Do you have your medical files?"

"What?" Cam blushed a bit. "No. Of course not."

"I saw them the other day," Brennan continued on, unperturbed. "We were looking at them."

"They were the...the official cave in files," Cam stuttered.

Booth snickered.

"Are they in the Bone Room?" Brennan was veering that way but Cam cut in.

"In my office," she sighed, and Brennan swerved suddenly, tripping in front of Cam so that she had to stop abruptly, letting the partners pass too close for comfort. Brennan caught her breath, feeling Booth's cologne burn her lungs now that it was mingling with sweat and the last effects of sloppy beer. She checked his face quickly but also carefully to make sure he was sober enough.

"I'm fine," he snapped. He was sharp enough to catch it. But then again, he missed very little.

"Here." Cam handed her the file as they stopped around her desk.

"Hey Camille," Booth waved off the glower with raised eyebrows and a crooked half smile. "Have any of that old school rock still on your computer? It's late. We could order Chinese food."

"Oh, sure." Brennan appreciated that her coworker caught on quickly.

Cam scooted herself close to her computer while Brennan leafed through the file, focusing on the pictures quickly, exchanging silent glances with Booth, waiting. Loud guitar began and Brennan took off her ring to place it next to the speakers. Booth put his poker chip on top of hers.

"What is this?" Brennan made a face.

Booth rolled his eyes. "Aerosmith? God."

Cam smirked but swallowed it down. Brennan didn't appreciate that; she wasn't blind.

"What do we got?" Booth asked before Brennan opened her mouth.

She lowered the folder down to Cam's seated height.

"This." She pointed to the picture that had been taken of Cam recovered from the cave in, looking bruised and wan.

"Yeah, yeah," Cam said grumpily, flushing at the picture of her in her sports bra and multiple contusions. Brennan didn't understand her shame; she had a fantastic body.

"No. Here." Brennan pointed behind Cam, at the out of focus face half turned from the camera carrying something red.

"What?"

"That's the EMT, carrying a shock blanket," Cam said in understanding.

"What?" Booth said again, more impatiently, still not understanding.

"Here again," Brennan flipped to the next picture, where Cam was irritably slapping the wrist of a man with indistinct features in his twenties.

"And here," she murmured as she turned to the third photo. The face was at another angle, the man walking away, and Cam now wrapped in a red blanket, looking miserably at the ground.

"It's him." Brennan stared at him, his blurry features. "That's how he would know the lab. He learned all of our names, our habits, our working relationships while on the case. He could have had access to our files, our cards, our identities and personal notes while we were in his orchestrated cave-in."

"That does make sense," Cam said in a low voice, with a dubious glance towards the speakers. "But then who would be working with him?"

"Does it matter right now?" argued Brennan obstinately. "We have a viable lead."

"Booth has a viable lead," Cam corrected.

Booth waved off their bickering as he frowned at the three photos he shuffled in his hands like poker cards.

"Are you sure?" Booth squinted too. "How can you be sure?" he repeated.

"Who else could it be?"

"I don't know," Booth said sarcastically. "Any other EMT."

"Did any others approach you?" Brennan asked Cam.

"No," Cam answered honestly, her brow wrinkling. "That's actually really weird. He sort of…fended them off. Like he was protecting me. Like I was his charge. At the time I didn't really care."

"He was marking you," and when Booth said it, his voice was dark and suddenly sober, full of rage. Brennan and Cam both glanced at him in surprise.

"He was?"

"Did he give you anything? Anything other than the blanket?"

"No," Cam said in bewilderment. "Just water. He made sure I was okay…" she trailed off and Booth's gaze sharpened.

"What?"

"It's just…when they put me on the stretcher…he seemed really upset."

"Then maybe his little visit to your house was retribution."

Cam's jaw locked up. She didn't say anything.

Brennan looked back and forth between them.

"How can we be absolutely _sure_?"

"I thought you were sure!" Booth bellowed, his frustration with a threat to his friends getting the better of him.

"I thought I was, but you bring up a valid point Booth!"

"Get Angela to blow up the photographs," Cam said dully. "Let's see if we can get him."

"Are you sure he didn't give you anything? You haven't been bugged?"

"Is there a way you can go over my house?" Cam gave him a look that made Brennan feel sick and sad at the same time. "What if the bodies were just a distraction?"

"Shit."

"I know."

Brennan pressed her lips together and leaned against the desk.

"Should I call Angela now? We have a face. A possible ID."

"No," said Cam heavily after a moment's silence, "it can wait until morning. It'll be quite a day tomorrow."

"So what should we do now?" Brennan asked in pitiful confusion.

"Well I," and Booth pointedly picked up his poker chip and slipped it into his pocket, "am going home. I'm tired."

"No Chinese food then," Cam hitched a half smile towards Booth.

"What?" Brennan asked blankly. Booth rolled his eyes and pointed at her ring. She blinked before nodding.

"Oh yes," she said a little too loudly. "I have already eaten." And she slipped the ring over the correct finger. She caught the tail end of an eyeroll from Cam but ignored it.

"We could go out for a drink though," Cam offered.

"I don't think so," Booth grunted.

"Come on Seeley," Cam dimpled. "You drank enough for the two of us earlier, but I hardly had anything. We don't have to go to the Founding Fathers. We can go someplace else where they don't know how much you've had."

Booth blushed dully, both, Brennan suspected, out of anger and out of shame.

"I'm fine," he said brusquely.

"Booth," Cam sighed. "All right. I guess it's home for me."

"No, you should go Booth." Brennan surprised herself. Usually hungry for her and Booth's budding relationship, his moodiness from the impossible case was proving a dampener.

"What?" he seemed just as surprised as she, and, as little as she could read from facial expressions, though this one was quite obvious, he seemed to be hurt by her rebuff. He had obviously expected more sexual liasons. As if the third day of their new relationship constituted something more.

"I have work to catch up on."

"You always have work to catch up on," he said crossly.

"I can't work on my book with your hovering," she sighed, and this was partially true, although there were other times were she over compensated by drawing heavily on Booth, his expressions, and his gestures to make her characters – as Angela dictated – seem "more real."

"Fine," he grumbled. "Guess I am getting that drink with you," he shot at Cam, whose lingering suspicions between the partners were quashed by their returning to mulish un-attraction.

Brennan watched them go with a state of wistfulness mixed with bitterness. Booth turned suddenly as if he could hear her thoughts but she had already turned her face away, ducking down the hall that led to her office, and he kept walking with Cam.

Inside the confines of her office, at least, she felt marginally safe. The lab was one of the highest security institutes in Washington DC, and in fact the world, and so Brennan felt fairly sure there were no corpses sitting on her furniture in wait. Yet she knew somehow the killer had managed to get into Limbo and back out again with a body. So she didn't fault herself for checking inside her wardrobe, under her coffee table and behind her desk.

However, once seated behind her desk, it was all too easy to place the letter on her desk. The last letter from her office. She knew where the others were, but she also knew there were only these three left. She bit her lip. She wished, somehow, she had saved Booth's for last, but she grinned to herself. She also didn't regret a second of her decision.

She followed the now old routine of procrastinating as long as possible. She opened the word document of her novel. She wrote steadily for two pages a detailed sex scene Angela would be proud of, drawn from her and Booth's first time. She thought about how she could incorporate it into the novel, and decided it didn't really matter. Angela would decide when her facts were getting too "boring."

Flushed and acutely aware of her solidarity at this point, Brennan glanced at the clock. It was 11:28. She had seen the security guard circle past. He looked more nervous than usual. Brennan didn't blame him. His job, which Brennan knew this particular guard to have been working at for almost six years, had once been calm and routine. Now it was a high stress situation.

The letter was blank on the outside, just a plain white envelope with the Jeffersonian letterhead in the corner. She smiled with a quirk to her lips as she slipped a finger under the unsealed folds. She could guess before she opened the letter to reveal the blocky, large square letters that it was from Hodgins. It was on graph paper, the kind he used for printing when he mapped pollen counts and insect populations in a region.

She remembered what Hodgins had said: _Have you gotten to my letter yet?_ And that he was pleased by her letter to him. That was unusual. All her return letters had been…she hissed a breath between her teeth as she thought the word 'brutal.'

_Dear Dr. B_ –

Brennan always loved, with a half smile, that Hodgins had one day abbreviated her name to 'Dr. B' and had stuck to calling her that. A few years previously, she would have found it insubordinate and rude; now it was endearing. It was a sign of affection and love, much like his gift of the book of lizards and exotic plants when she moved to the Maluku Islands.

_Where to start with your letter? I read it six or seven times. Four straight off the bat, and then before writing your answer, twice more. I suppose I wanted to write a good response for you to keep, but I also know that whatever I write I'll always regret something I didn't put in, something I should have added, a different way I could have worded it. I wanted to type it, but Angela told me that you'd appreciate it more if I wrote it by hand, even with my terrible handwriting. Because this way, you can see that I didn't go over it, didn't edit it ten times. That I just wrote out what I think of you, straight and honest. That you'd like that._

Brennan sucked in a deep breath. It scared her sometimes, how well her friends knew her. She ran the pad of her thumb over the words she had already read before flicking her eyes down to find her place to continue.

_I suppose the most logical way to respond to your letter is to go paragraph by paragraph and refute your claims. But that's not how I'm going to do it. _Brennan laughed out loud, just a short chuckle of surprise, or in Hodgins' case, unsurprise.

_You know me. I devise experiments; some work, and some don't. But instead of following your letter writing formula, I'm responding as I see fit. Brennan, you end your letter with this inane idea that you have a limited capacity for love. Let me just tell you that that's complete crap. You, like Zack, like Vincent Nigel-Murray, like so many people I've come to love and lose in this lab, love just as deeply as any of the 'normal' people I've ever met, and perhaps more. And this is why: because you know what's at stake._

Brennan swallowed.

_You know what you've got to lose, because you've lost it before. You're careful, controlled, and sure, uptight_ – Brennan almost smiled, but her fingers were frozen in their tight grip on the tiny squared paper – _but the reason that's so obvious to all of us, to any of us, is that you matter more, that you love _more_, than anyone I could have the privilege of knowing._ Brennan wondered if his word choice was deliberate, from his unforgettable last words: "Dr. Brennan…it's been a privilege."

_You love differently, and you show that love differently, and we understand that. It's harder for you, because of the things you've seen, the life you've had. Hell, it's hard for me to interact with the 'outside world' without wanting to throttle them. Or even Sweets really. The kid is sweet, but irritating as crap. Knows his stuff though. _

Brennan sighed: _My thoughts exactly_, she surmised, and was surprised to find herself wishing Hodgins was here, so she could explain her reactions to different parts of the letter, a bit at a time.

_Like a real conversation? _Asked the snide voice in side of her head. She ignored it in favor of reading.

_Because you love differently, we've all learned to love you in the way you need to be loved. Angela knows how to talk to you in a way I can really only guess at. Hell, she's my _wife_ and I don't think she can work the same language with me- unless, you know, she studied the manuscripts of the Illuminati. _

Brennan wrinkled her forehead and reread the last paragraph. Hodgins had lost her.

_It was a joke, Dr. B. _

Her face cleared, and she quirked a smile at herself. Hodgins did indeed, know her too well.

_Angela knows how to talk to you, Cam makes sure all your lab reports are always written exactly the same_ – Brennan blinked. She had never once noticed. _– Betcha never noticed that, did you? Cam will ream any intern who tries to vary from format. She knows how much you dislike change in your lab._

Brennan felt ashamed how much her family coddled and helped her, and she never noticed, much less thanked them.

_Sweets had to learn basically an entirely new vocabulary to communicate with you and Booth. And there's Booth of course…man that's a whole other ball of wax…_Brennan wasn't sure what wax had to do with it, but she connoted his meeting. _And me…well you mention the book I made you for the Maluku Islands; writing the letter on the plane actually. It's just strange to think how much time has passed; how much has changed. _

_ More than you think_, Brennan wanted to tell him, but this time she was glad Hodgins couldn't hear her think her response.

_I gave you that book because I couldn't give you anything else you'd appreciate. You don't want help (not that you don't need it…), _Brennan bit her lip angrily but kept going, _ you don't need anything beautiful; all I could think of was something useful. Something that no one else could give you. So you would understand that I took the time for you because I cared. Not because of some anthropological rule indebting you to me._ Brennan's teeth in her lip sank in harder, but this time to stave off exasperated laughter, but also exasperated pinpricks in her cornea.

_Dr. B, I love you. As your friend, as Angela's husband. As your coworker. As my boss. I'm indebted to you for saving my life. For pulling shrapnel out of my leg from a car hitting me. The details you talked about in the courtroom…I wish you had said something. All I could stare at, strangely enough, were her shoes. All I could stare at were her high heeled shoes, thinking about how they had gunned the pedal of the car that had run me down, leaving bumper in my shin, hard enough to dent the fender, break my leg, and leave scars there for the rest of my life. Every time I wear shorts I have to look at those white marks of what she did. Of what happened to me. Of where we were. In the dark. When you looked at me and said: "This will hurt" and I told you I was nuts about Angela. _

Brennan had never noticed that Hodgins always wore long pants; it was a work appropriate attire, but even on weekends he wore jeans. She had never seen him swim, or wear shorts. It pained her to think that this was the reason.

_Brennan, we love you. _Brennan pursed her lips but they twitched of their own accord at the next line.

_Believe it or not, you did not _make_ us love you, or trick us into it. I know it's pretty unfathomable that you can't control everything in your life, but you can't. You can't stop your family from being nuts for you. Like me. Like it or not, you now have this depressive, angry, curly haired entomologist in your family. _Brennan finally sighed out the huge breath she hadn't known she was holding.

_You see_,_ you have qualities that make us love you_. _You talk about emotional shallowness. That's a laugh. If you and Booth's relationship isn't the most deeply complex, hugely daunting, incomprehensive emotional ball of feelings, I don't know what is. You're about as shallow as the Mariana Trench. _Brennan knew without missing a beat that this was the deepest part of the ocean in the world. She comprehended Hodgins' metaphor, even if she didn't appreciate it.

_Brennan, you may be the smartest person in the room most days, hell even every day. You may be my boss. You may be a lot of things, but there is one thing you will never be, and that's King of the Lab. _Brennan laughed in spite of herself, and was surprised to find her eyes much clearer after blinking quickly.

_And as King of the Lab I rule your previous letter ridiculous. I rule that you must feel loved. That you will take our love completely and without complaint, and you should probably try harder to let us love you. Because we do, always and completely._

_It will _always_ be a privilege. _

And the tears were real this time, at the intentional use of the phrase.

-_Jack Hodgins_

Brennan stuffed her letter back in the envelope and then blinked around her office. She waited to compose herself for a few minutes before standing. She sighed and collected her coat, and decided to drop Hodgins' letter back in her letterbox. She grabbed her car keys, and world weary, she trekked out to her car, letting the security guard trail her at a respectful distance without a fuss.

She drove into the parking garage at her apartment with a sense of relief, ignoring the tingling thrill of fear that dark parking lots always brought, both from the gravedigger, and from other cases – including this one. She tried not to rush up the stairs, but walk evenly and quietly, and laughed to herself when she saw Booth slumped in front of her door, dozing.

His sniper reflexes had heard her coming from before, but in an obvious attempt to look adorable and pathetic, he had returned to dozing, tilting his head back against her door, and only opening his eyes to slits as her boots stopped at his jeans.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in some confusion.

"What took you so long?"

"I told you I was-"

"Don't lie," he interrupted, and he hauled himself up, so he could be on equal footing with her while they spoke as partners, and not as lovers.

"You were reading a letter," he accused. "How long does that take?"

"Not that long," she defended. "But I honestly did work on my book before I opened it."

"Oh." He seemed deflated in his defeat, exhausted and slumped, all planes and peaks from his ruffled hair.

She reached up and ran her own fingers through it with a half smile, patting it back down in place.

"Thanks," he said. And that was their mutual apology.

Hodgins was right, Brennan realized, as she opened the door shyly, letting him in as he politely waited for her to lead him on her own time and territory. Everyone loved her on her own terms. She supposed she should reciprocate. She bit the inside of her cheek briefly for courage before opening her mouth.

"I love you," she said as she dropped her car keys into the dolphin bowl by the phone.

"I'm sorry?" he said carefully, standing stock still behind the freshly closed front door.

"I said, 'I love you,'" she repeated impatiently. "Honestly Booth, you should get your hearing checked."

"I…I…" he didn't seem to have a response, so she leaned on tiptoe to kiss his stunned lips, and he kept his wondering eyes open and confused, so she stepped back down, shrugged, and trailed down the hall to her bedroom, leaving him to do what he pleased.

He appeared in her doorway as she hung her coat carefully over a chair, sitting on the edge of her bed to unzip her boots.

"You said you loved me," and his voice was the even, dark voice he used on her earlier. The shock victim voice. Although, from her perspective, he was the one who was in shock.

"You said you loved me," she said reasonably. "In fact, you've told me you love me several times. I thought you'd like to know it was reciprocated."

"I did. I mean…I do. I want to…I did know…I suspected…well it was more than suspicion. It was 90%. But to hear you say it –" Brennan cut his rambling off with a yank to his tie.

"Why are you here Booth?" she demanded. "Are you going to be shocked by _every_ development in this relationship? Like when you saw me naked?"

"But that was…breathtaking. I mean, really Brennan."

And this time she flushed with pleasure.

"Did it live up to your expectations?" she was teasing him mercilessly, and it wasn't fair, considering how completely dazed he still looked, like someone had hit him with a taser.

"Beyond," he assured her, coming to sit beside her on the bed.

"No," she frowned. "That's my side of the bed."

"I always sleep on the left."

"So do I."

"Well scoot over."

"No. My bed, my rules."

"Well when we sleep in my bed-"

"No. You're just going to have to change."

"That's ridiculous Bones. We could just take turns."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Or we could race."

His eyebrows also went up.

"Are you suggesting we see who can take off our clothes the fastest to see who gets the spot?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

Brennan laughed as she yanked her shirt over her head. "On if I win."


	20. If I Stumble and I Fall

**The original letter is in chapter 18.**

* * *

><p>"You know, sulking is very unbecoming," he sing-songed into the lid of their Styrofoam coffee cups that Brennan hated because they polluted the earth, but she drank out of whenever she was at the bureau.<p>

"It's not fair," she retorted, trying to keep the whine out of her voice, and knowing it was unsuccessful by his cheeky grin. "Girls wear more."

"I didn't say you had to yank out your earrings. Honestly even the heels –"

"Dr. Sweets!" interrupted Brennan hastily and had the minor pleasure of watching Booth spit scalding coffee back onto his pants as he stood up.

"Even the heels on what?" Sweets asked with a good natured smile, hoping desperately to be let in on the partners joke.

Brennan exchanged a panicked look with Booth.

"Bread," he blurted. "Heels of bread. She…she doesn't like them. And I do."

"You know Dr. Brennan," and Sweets sank down with a sigh on the edge of Booth's desk. The top heavy bobble-headed Bobby toppled over with a plastic thud. "You should try them with peanut butter."

"I haven't tried peanut butter," she agreed innocently, her eyes locked on Booth.

He spilled more coffee and swore.

"I hate these cups!" he bellowed.

"I do too," she criticized. "They are so bad for the environment."

"Angela said you guys have a big break in the case," Sweets reminded them pointedly, not bothering to hand Booth the napkins well within reach of his left hand, but instead helping himself to Booth's Twix collection.

"Oh yeah. That." Booth's tone made Brennan roll her eyes.

"We don't have anything," Brennan finished smoothly, notably scratching her cheek with her right hand. Booth caught on.

"Yeah. Let's just…go to the kitchen for more coffee." He held out his hand and she dropped her ring into it primly and he left the room.

"What is going on?" Sweets asked, his right cheek puffed out in chipmunk style around the caramel and chocolate.

"Booth and I have been bugged."

"_What?_" spluttered Sweets, and pounded himself on the chest with his fist. Brennan handed him her foam coffee mug and he gratefully gulped some down before making a face.

"And this is why I only drink the coffee at the coffee cart outside."

"The killers have been tracking us using microtransmitters on effects we always keep on our person."

"Such as?"

"My mothers ring, and the poker chip in Booth's pocket."

Sweets was momentarily side tracked. "Booth keeps a poker chip in his pocket?"

"He says it helps keep the gambling urges to a minimum."

"I also just feel luckier," Booth cut in, sliding back into the room with raised eyebrows and a nod at Brennan.

"So…" and Sweets lowered his voice as if they were still overheard, "Angela said…"

"Oh yes, I texted her," Brennan agreed complacently.

"Is it safe for me to talk?"

Booth raised his eyebrows again and smirked. He circled the desk to lean back in his own chair, putting his right hand behind his head and pushing the limits to the spring in the chair back as he surveyed them both. As if on cue, Sweets sunk into the other chair next to Brennan to face him. She found the unsubtle shifts in power fascinating.

"Yeah, that was a dumb question," Sweets nodded to himself.

"Anyway," Booth rolled his eyes, "we texted Angela to fill her in on our break in the case."

"Which is?"

"I'm coming to that," Booth retorted impatiently. "We are pretty sure…okay…very sure that-"

"One of the suspects is the EMT from Kentucky." Brennan beat him to the punch.

"Kentucky?" Sweets' eyebrows meshed with his curls. "It goes back that far?"

"Booth is pretty sure that's when he picked us out and learned all about us." She peeked at Booth, realizing that she and Sweets were turned fully in their chairs and engaged in conversation without him.

"Cam…" Sweets' brow wrinkled and his eyebrows descended once more. "She was the victim in the cave in. And her house…"

"Yeah," interrupted Booth. "He picked her."

"Why her?" Sweets asked biting his lip pensively.

"What?" Booth shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? It was any of us. She went running; it was bad luck."

"No," Sweets corrected. "It was more than that. She was selected."

"Selected?" Brennan echoed delicately.

"Chosen," Sweets supplied absently, and Brennan ground her teeth at his tone. She knew very well what the word _selected_ meant.

Booth pursed his lips across the desk and she knew he was trying not to smile at her expression. She turned ruthlessly away, not to be tempted by the hair sticking up in all directions around his forehead. As if her very thoughts had summoned it, his hand absently ruffled it again, combing three distinct trenches even more deeply and absurdly.

"What do you mean chosen?" Booth tugged on the ends of his short hair, creating small twisted peaks.

"Cam was selected for a reason, a purpose, something about her stuck out."

"Like what?" Brennan asked impatiently.

"Or maybe," Sweets said slowly, "It's what wasn't about her."

"What?" Brennan could tell when Booth pulled his dangerous voice. He had sat forward and Sweets looked as troubled as he did.

"Bear with me. But when sexual predators stalk young men or women they always pick the outsider. The 'weakest of the herd' mentality."

"Cam is not the weakest of the herd," Booth ground out.

"The predators," Sweets continued, ignoring Booth, "often pick the victim who would not have the contacts or self confidence to ask for help. And then befriend them, becoming the 'one person' who listens to them."

"Well we can rule out this crap theory," Booth interrupted again. "The EMT didn't bother to listen to Cam or befriend her."

"He's also not a sexual predator," Sweets said gently.

"Then why did you bring this up?" Brennan frowned, more upset at Booth's indignation than feeling any of her own.

"It's not a perfect translation, but it's the nearest I can think of psychoanalytically. She isn't being stalked, leastwise not by someone who fits the generic stalker profile. No one is obsessed with her, but rather seeks to use her to penetrate the group as a whole."

"You're saying," Booth answered quietly, "that she isn't part of a team. That she's on her own."

"Yes," said Sweets.

"Well if that were the case, why didn't the killer pick you?" Brennan asked blandly.

"What?" Sweets faltered.

"Bones," sighed Booth, rubbing his fingers over his eyes with one hand.

"You are not part of the team; in fact you are removed from it. You are secondary to our work. We've solved many cases without you."

"Bones," said Booth again, this time trying to get her attention.

"You live alone, you work alone. In fact, Cam lives with someone – Michelle. And she works with us on a daily basis. You have other cases, another life, we know nothing about. You stand at a vulnerable point in the social grouping."

"Brennan!" and this time Booth snapped and her got her attention with her name. She realized the look on his face seconds too late.

"It's okay Agent Booth, I know she's not purposefully trying to be cruel. She's just curious." And now Brennan could hear the hurt in his voice, see the anguish in his features. She knew, anthropologically because she had listed the factors, that it was because of her honesty. That the truth of the situation that was hurting him.

She ducked her head in shame, trying very hard to find something on her key ring to look at that she hadn't fiddled with countless times before.

"The…" and Sweets seemed to take a moment to regain composure. "The reason I suspect they chose Dr. Saroyan is her isolation from what appears to be a very cohesive group of people."

"You mean the fifth wheel syndrome," Booth added.

Brennan wrinkled her nose. There were customarily only four. But she didn't interrupt, still upset with herself.

"Yes," Sweets stared at Booth. "Did you…talk about this with her?"

Booth twisted his own mouth in an unconscious mirroring of Brennan.

"It was what we talked about before she went for her run the morning of the cave-in."

"Did you speak extensively on the subject?"

"Yes," Booth said flatly, and Brennan jerked her gaze to him in surprise. "Yes, we spent hours sobbing about our feelings and inadequacies. Then she decided to come inside because she felt valued at last."

Brennan had caught onto his heavily sarcastic tone, but still frowned.

"I'm kidding," he rolled his eyes, having added the last part for her.

"I know," she said, a bit perturbed.

"I take your meaning," Sweets sighed. "I just wish I could talk to Dr. Saroyan further, perhaps to see if something more has been driving the distance in the lab."

"Something more?" Brennan asked, confused.

"Why can't you talk to her?" Booth asked at the same time.

Sweets held up one hand to cut them off, and Brennan knew their unison was irking him.

"Firstly," and he addressed Brennan, twisting in his seat to face her fully, which Brennan knew anthropomorphically meant he gave her full attention and respect. "You know more than anyone, as you have just clearly demarcated to me, the lines drawn in the lab."

"Lines?" and she pretended to be confused so as to have him clarify something she already feared.

His faintly sarcastic smile let her know that he wasn't fooled by her question.

"Of Angela and Hodgins-"

"They're married," she interrupted, "It's different."

"And you and Booth," he continued. She shut her mouth almost audibly, hearing the click of it up her jawline.

"The interns of course, align depending on who they are, some taking more strongly to Dr. Hodgins, and some more to you."

Brennan could see the obvious hole now.

"But what about Cam?" Booth asked the question Sweets had been waiting for.

"It doesn't seem she has a side, on either of the divisions. She is her own section of the lab, but no one else crosses into it. You flit by each other and share with one another – the interns, the cases, but Cam lives in relative isolation."

Brennan didn't miss his switch to first name basis. She had to wonder if Sweets identified with Cam.

"Oh," and again Booth said all there seemed to say.

"As for why I can't just ask her," and now Sweets' voice took on a fairly tolerant and lighter tone, "I dare _you_ to ask her to come to my office."

Booth laughed.

"What?" Brennan said.

"She'd bite your head off," agreed Booth, to a premise Brennan wasn't following.

"More coffee?" she asked.

"No thanks," Booth answered absently, but then he caught her meaning and grimaced.

"What should I do?" Sweets had followed the exchange with his usual fluency.

"Work up a profile based on what Angela gives you. It's easier for her and Cam to convey the details to you than for us."

"Done," Sweets said promptly. "I'll have it by tomorrow."

"Or whenever Angela runs through the photographs," Brennan conceded.

"Coffee then," Booth said grimly and stood up behind his desk, a clear dismissal.

"Okay then." Sweets awkwardly ducked out of Booth's office with a half smile, while Brennan watched Booth run his hands through his hair again absently.

"You want some coffee Bones?" he asked her, holding out his arm. She shyly tucked hers through it.

"I'd love some," she lied, and before Booth could bob scowlingly away, she slicked his hair back to its normal height.

* * *

><p>"Ange what do we have?" Brennan nearly vaulted into Angela's room upon seeing the photographs of the crime scene on her giant, translucent monitor.<p>

"Well, I just blew up the photographs-"

"Of the DeMarco murder," Brennan prompted her.

Angela stared blankly back for a moment before nodding sagely. "Right. The DeMarco case."

Booth and Brennan had come up with the code in the car. Although Angela assured Brennan often of her timely reading of her text messages, Brennan wasn't quite convinced.

"And I've run them through the criminal record database, having the software run a visual comparison."

"And?"

"No hits."

"So what are you doing now?"

"Running it through the DMV."

"But what if…DeMarco's killer isn't from around here?"

"Sweetie, we work with the FBI," Angela pacified her. "We have the ability to run the country, it just takes time."

"How long?" Brennan asked.

The computer pinged. There were no hits in the District of Columbia.

Angela sighed, typing new code into her iPad. "Now? A couple of hours."

"Text me if you get anything," Brennan said, trying not to overemphasize the word _text_. She wanted to make sure Angela understood. Angela didn't look up, so Brennan continued.

"I may be going to the movies with Booth, so _definitely_ text."

"Okay," Angela snapped, smiling brightly. "I get it."

"I'll go," Brennan offered, and slipped out.

She passed Cam on her way to the office.

"How's the DeMarco case?" Cam asked with a hitch to the corner of her mouth that was neither a smirk nor a smile but had remnants of both.

"Okay," Brennan answered cautiously, supremely aware of Cam's position in this case. _It wasn't her fault, _Brennan reminded herself.

"Any leads?"

"None yet. Angela's working on it," said Brennan. She paused, and then offered. "Do you have any work for me?"

"Oh no," Cam smiled. "Not right now. You can go work on your book."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm just catching up on paperwork," and with that scandalizing thought that anyone would not do their paperwork right away, Cam turned and left Brennan alone.

Brennan slipped into her office between a half open door. It was an old habit of hers, not to open the door all the way and sidle through. It was an unhappy remnant of her foster years, and her unpopularity in school: getting around attracting the least amount of attention possible.

She easily found the letter. It was the last one in her letterbox.

And the last one from the lab. She glanced at the expensive heavy envelope before turning it over. It didn't have writing on it, other than the title _Letter to a Friend_. She knew whose it was before she opened it, and she was perturbed.

Cam's letter was written on the type of stationery that professionals used; it was thick, heavy, and off white. In one corner there was a gilded embellished 'C.'

_Dear Brennan_, it began, and Brennan was inundated with the feeling of a story unfolding. She moved from behind her desk to drop onto her couch sideways, feet sticking over the edge so that they were visible from the door, though she didn't want interruptions.

_You mentioned everyone else in the lab bothered you long before I did. I'm actually quite surprised I haven't irked you more than I had. It took you a long time to write to me. But I understand why._

_ Booth and I were old friends_. Brennan wasn't surprised at Cam's tactic. It would make sense that she would try and defend their relationship, feeling the need to explain to Brennan. She still tucked her tongue between her teeth in preparation for biting down on it to drown out any unforeseeable painful reminders.

_I had grown up with Seeley and Jared. So much as "growing up" extends into your twenties. I was just a kid around them, around him, always. It's probably why we remained friends after our relationship – or rather, the fourth or fifth rekindling of that relationship – ended. Booth and I were always falling together. How do you not when a person knows such a lot about you?_

Brennan bit her lip. _Knew you when you were less tough, less put together? __Booth knew me in my extremes. He was my friend when my mother died. I was his during the war. He came back from Afghanistan and laughed the first time he saw me in a dress. B__oth of us had grown up during that time. And that's when the relationship really started to end, though either of us wanted to admit it. So we continued on without a goodbye, even in the airport when I left for New York. It was just a 'see you around.' And we did. See each other. Every six months, then less frequently, maybe once a year. And then we lost touch. Booth had Rebecca and Parker. I had Andrew and Michelle. Our lives, maybe not what we had dreamed up as kids, were establishing themselves. Our rekindled partnering smoldered and died for what I was sure was the last time. _

_ Coming to the Jeffersonian was an honor. I was never scared. I was looking forward to working in the lab, though I had been warned by Dr. Goodman over the phone about the impossibility of all of your personalities. You, and Hodgins, and Zack._

Brennan glowered at the page.

_Seeing Booth again, and realizing our "established" lives we had told to each other over the phone had fallen so deeply apart, what with my leaving Andrew and Michelle, and Booth never quite getting Rebecca to marry him, we fell inevitably back together. It was fun, for a while, to be kids again. But we both knew there was an expiration date. _

_ Booth had never looked at anyone, especially not me, the way he looked at you._

Brennan swallowed hard.

_He warned me away from you. I wanted fire you._ Brennan's eyebrows went up. _When I asked him hypothetically what would happen, he laughed grimly and said the whole lab would walk. That you were the package deal. I put it to the test, pushing him just that little bit further. "And you?" I asked._

Brennan had never heard this story from Booth. Her eyes devoured the page as fast as she could push them, seeing tantalizing glimpses of words just lines underneath the ones she was reading.

_"I'm with Bones," he answered, "All the way Cam, don't doubt it for a second."_

_ And that's when I knew. Really knew, that our relationship – at least our sexual one – was over. Because he was madly head over heels for you._

Brennan bit her bottom lip, carefully rubbing one eyelid with her index finger and then screwing it into the corner of the other, hard enough to see stars, just to make sure she was reading properly.

Everyone had known then? Since 2006? And it had taken this long? She felt creeping shame. Angela had told her over and over again, but she hadn't really listened. Not this way. Not in the way that made her believe. Or perhaps she hadn't let herself believe. Not yet.

_When Booth fell in love with you a second time after surgery, - or maybe even more deeply - it wasn't as much of a shock to me as he expected it to be. He tried to tell me over beers, but I beat him to the punch._

_ "You're in love with Dr. Brennan," I informed him, and he looked so sheepish with that little boy grin, I knew I was right. He hadn't known, I realize now, how crazy he was for you. He had only suspected, and kept it buried. The way Seeley always does with something important him. It was only when things – you two especially – are in jeopardy, that he finally let himself figure it out. It didn't take a hallucination to spell it out for him, he only thought it did._

Brennan's brow furrowed. Cam's relationship with Booth was difficult and confusing, but also somewhat touching. She was a bit relieved to know she wasn't the slow one on the uptake in this relationship. Apparently Booth had been if not equally oblivious, similarly blocked in trying to understand their partnership.

_It was sweet of you to say I'm smarter than Booth. I'm not sure that's true. Academically, maybe. But Booth never applied himself. Yet he's the kind of man that whatever he turns his hand to, he will succeed – as an FBI agent, as a sniper, as an athlete, as a friend. I am positive that if he had wanted to be, he could have been a brilliant academic. Leastways in an area that interested him. He's a quick study, and hides it behind his doofiness and fake forgetfulness._

Brennan read the last two words again, confused, until she read the next sentence. I_ doubt he's ever forgotten a birthday. _

Brennan raised her eyebrows again, smiling slightly. It was astute of Cam to see that, but it also shamed her. Booth had never forgotten her birthday, not once. Yet she was hard pressed to know when his was outside of the month of May.

_Your letter about Michelle made me cry_.

And Cam's blunt transition surprised Brennan more than she had expected, Cam's neat penmanship now looped and scrawled with something she could quite pin down.

_ I suppose from the outside it looked brave to take in a teenager I hardly knew. Yet I did know her. I knew Andrew, and I knew what kind of father he was. What kind of daughter he would raise. And our closeness, despite its falling apart before we ever got married, imprinted me with a sense of missing him. Missing my chance to be part of a real family._

_ I suppose that seems very silly to you._

It didn't.

_The lab is a wonderful family, but before Michelle I would still go home to an empty apartment every night. Michelle, so confused and angry, reminded me a lot of myself at her age. I never thought twice about inviting her to live with me; but I did fear her rejection. I had staked so much on my new idea of a family, I hadn't even considered what would happen if she said no. I was hopeful, and I was rewarded with the best daughter I could have had. _

_ I know what you meant about not being wanted, even though I was never a foster kid. I was lucky to have a wonderful family, a mother and father who loved me. A sister who I love, though I don't always like. And we weren't rich. Maybe if we were, my mother could have received the kind of care she deserved before dying. _

Brennan realized that Cam had never once mentioned what her mother had died from.

_After she died, I moved away. It was too painful to be around my father. He always looked at me as if trying to see my mother inside my actions. However, it was always Felicia who was most like her. I felt I was only in the way of their personal grief. I didn't understand at the time that grief is never personal. It's messy, and contaminating. And it was in my messy and messed up state that I met Booth. And he was so similar. Just like you said. _

Brennan felt an unusual sense of sympathy towards this younger Cam, and by extent, young Booth.

_He was four years older, but didn't seem it. I was 23 and lost. Falling into company with someone who knew what I was going through was so easy. I quit the force when he went overseas. I started studying for medical school. _

_ I never dreamed that I would become a mother of a teenage girl so young. That was one of the reasons I had left the Bronx, to avoid that fate. Yet your letter helped me come to terms –even years later – with some of my inadequacies about raising Michelle. She didn't need much raising. She was done. _

_ But that's what I though about myself at her age. That I was finished growing up. _

_ I don't know if I'll ever be finished. I hope not. And I hope Michelle will still need me, though it already feels she doesn't._

Brennan smiled crookedly, and pushed her chin into the cup of her hand, leaning heavily on it to stare at the last few lines of the letter.

_Your letter meant the world to me. And maybe I've been crossing the line in your and Booth's relationship in trying to fix things, but I just wanted you to know that I care for you both. Deeply. _

_ Always your friend,_

_ Cam _

The blinds rattled and Brennan looked up expectantly, hoping for Booth.

It was Angela.

"Sweets wants to see you tomorrow morning."

"Okay," she agreed absently, hastily tucking the letter out of sight.

"Are you okay?" Angela studied her face and gestured. "You look all…flushed."

"I'm fine," Brennan replied promptly. "Did you make any progress on the case?"

Angela glanced at the desk and Brennan pulled her hand out of sight, making a face.

"Yes," she said vaguely, "Sweets wants to talk to you in the morning about it."

"Great," Brennan said, unenthusiastically. Angela's tone wasn't all that promising. "What time is it?"

"Closing time," Angela grinned. "One last call for alcohol."

"What?"

"You're so oblivious sweetie."

"You want…alcohol?"

"I wouldn't say no."

"Fine," sighed Brennan, and she picked up her keys. "I could use a drink anyway."

She tucked Cam's letter into her jeans pocket and followed Angela out.


	21. Carry Me Through

**There really aren't ANY good excuses for this nine month hiatus. I could have grown a human in that time. (I didn't). I guess the excuses I have aren't great, just that Bones is so bad. It scores my heart that it went the way of Dexter. I haven't watched in two years, so sometimes writing this makes me extremely sad, like missing friendships that ended badly and trying to side step those failures to remember the good times. But recently at my extremely boring job I re-read The Letterbox and Heartfelt Paper Airplanes up to the point I left it, and it made me smile. It's some of my best work, and certainly my best fanfiction. I promised I would finish it, and I will. And not to beg for reviews, but I'm squeezing the last bit of juice from this orange, and I need ideas for where it will go. My general sketched plot is just that: sketchy at best. I'm sorry all, and I hope you enjoy the return.**

* * *

><p>"You haven't spoken in an hour," Angela said as she looked up from her phone, where the timer was still running.<p>

Brennan glanced up from her third glass of wine, this one still full. She felt buzzed, but not in a happy way, in a mellow, confused, and upset way. She hated that someone was listening to her conversations, to her most difficult moments working things out. She never took off her mother's ring for fear of losing it, even in the shower, but now found herself slipping it off regularly. She still wondered how they had managed to fix it; probably in the cave in, when the techs had asked her to take a shower in the RV and she had pulled it off to rub the dirt out of it. It had still been by the sink when she exited the tiny bathroom. She should have known better.

She and Angela were in a bar that was quiet enough for a transmitter to pick up everything, so she wasn't feeling particularly chatty.

"Sorry, what?" she asked, blinking at Angela.

Angela frowned in exasperation. "I said you haven't spoken in an hour."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Sweetie," sighed Angela. "What is going _on_ with you? I thought…aren't you and Booth on better terms?" she smiled suggestively. Brennan had to wonder if that was her imagination, or if Angela simply didn't know how to smile any other way.

"We are," she answered shortly. She could just imagine the snide laughter on the other end of the microphone.

"Did it happen all at once?" prodded Angela when it became apparent that Brennan wasn't going to offer more information.

"Did what?"

"Fixing it with Booth."

"What? Oh. No. It was gradual."

"You guys seem close now," Angela hinted hopefully.

"We are," said Brennan cautiously. She glanced down inadvertently at her ring and wished she hadn't said that. Angela took the hint and pulled out her phone.

_On that, I think I have a possible ID_. The text dinged on Brennan's phone on the counter and she snatched it up eagerly.

_Really?_

_A hit came up from Idaho. _

_What's the percentage of likelihood?_

_89%. _

_That's not great._

_It's almost 90._

_There's still a margin for error._

_Sweetie._

Brennan sighed out loud, knowing how Angela meant it.

_Okay. Name?_

Angela glanced around the bar and took a pen out of her purse.

"You don't trust…" Brennan trailed off aloud, a bit amused. "Hodgins is getting to you."

Angela raised her eyebrows sardonically, and Brennan craned her neck around to see what she had scribbled on the napkin.

_Alexander Martinson. _

"Oh," Brennan said aloud, but she returned to texting.

Angela took a hasty gulp of her wine with a surreptitious glance around, and Brennan followed suit, her keystrokes sure even one handed.

_What do we know?_

Angela correctly interpreted the non-question, which had Brennan scowling.

_Booth already knows. And so does Sweets._

_Profile?_

_Sweets is working it up now._

_Possible accomplices?_ Brennan was getting frustrated.

_Sweetie_, came again, almost a second after she had typed it. Brennan ground her teeth, feeling how tense her jaw muscles were. Wasn't sex supposed to relax her body?

_Okay. Do we know _anything? Brennan typed, her face scowling. Angela laughed aloud.

_Now I know how you must look reading my texts usually. _

Brennan flushed a bit, but tapped her phone impatiently, grateful at least, that Angela hadn't said it aloud in case the killers felt the need to bug their cell phones. (Hodgins, surprise tech guru, had already dismantled all of them to check for listening and recording devices and found none).

"Let's talk about something else," Brennan said aloud, annoyed their case was so slow going and dragging on so long.

"Sure," Angela agreed easily, knowing to step around the sensitive subject of Booth.

"Ange," said Brennan, after thirty minutes of conversation about Michael, Angela's favorite subject. To Brennan his development seemed to be progressing in perfect tandem with infantile psychology and developmental periods. "I'm sorry. I'm just so tired, and I think I want to head home."

"Sure," Angela agreed sympathetically. Brennan hated that. She knew she must have a 'look' on her face that she couldn't interpret, but everyone else around her could. She wished Angela would just _tell_ her what she saw there.

She drove home and was half relieved, half disappointed to find that Booth wasn't waiting for her. She had given him a key that morning, when they had gone to the kitchen for coffee, and he had almost spilled another cup.

"Bones," he had croaked when she had held it out. When it had become apparent his hands were frozen in a vise like grip around his styrofoam cup, she had impatiently dug through his front pockets, to his squeaked surprise, and attached the spare key onto his key ring herself before riffling for the key that opened his bureau locker so that she could grab the spare pair of pants he left there for late nights at the office.

That he had not invaded her privacy the same day both warmed her heart, and made her stomach drop. She desperately wanted Angela's advice about their relationship, but it was so new and fragile, Brennan also didn't want anyone interfering. What she really wanted, she supposed, was to be someone different. Someone who could understand these sorts of things.

Although she felt guilty for ditching Angela, Brennan took one look at her empty apartment and went back outside to her car. She was cautious, but confident, and drove to the diner with no interruptions, conveniently "forgetting" her ring in the dolphin bowl by the door, her speakers turned on low in lieu of a television.

She hadn't frequented the diner for a long time, a rare customer now. Prior to her new relationship, she had avoided the place because of Booth, and now she felt guilty ducking through the doors, as if this too, was a relationship she didn't understand.

"Dr. Brennan!" she looked up in gratitude for the waitress whose name she could never remember, but was surprised to see Sweets sitting at their usual table alone, a plate of French fries shoved invitingly in front of him.

"Dr. Sweets," she returned with as much composure as she could muster.

She sat down, and felt the last encounter the two had had in the diner settle between them. She looked awkwardly away, regretful still, of the letter she had sent. Sweets seemed to be thinking along the same lines, and in an endearing reversal of roles, pushed his plate of French fries towards her, where she took one to nibble on silently.

"Don't want to go home?" he asked conversationally. Brennan wiggled her fingers on her right hand for him to see the missing ring. It took him a moment, but he understood.

"I felt like coming here," she answered.

A waitress, one Brennan didn't know on sight, to her slight disappointment, arrived to take her order of an egg white omelet with extra spinach. Brennan turned back to Sweets, who was watching her with his round black eyes filled with something akin to…worry?

"What?" she asked guilelessly.

"So you've decided to stay vegetarian?"

Brennan flushed to the roots of her hair, glaring down at the table and wishing immediately she hadn't just ordered food so she would have been able to leave.

"Oh that. Yes. As I told you before, it was a foolish mistake."

Sweets didn't comment.

Brennan was perfectly comfortable to sit in silence; she felt no need to fill it with the chatter Angela or even Booth always came up with. Sweets, likewise, was content to steadily work his way through his French fries, alternately glancing at papers he had in front of him and peeking at Brennan when he thought she wasn't looking.

Reluctantly, Brennan, bored with her cell phone (an irritating habit picked up from Booth), glanced at the papers too, trying to form the words quickly enough upside down so as not to attract the attention from Sweets. But, like most social cues she missed, he looked up with a faint smile from his plate. Brennan felt forced to speak.

"Are those the notes from the DeMarco case?" It had become habit now, to refer to the body movers as the DeMarco case from endless hours of debating it with Booth.

"I'm trying to work up a profile," Sweets said instead, answering her underlying question. She hated when people did that, mostly because she herself never could understand subtext.

"Any luck?"

"Dr. Brennan," sighed Sweets. "We are all working as fast and as hard as we can."

"I didn't say anything to the effect of castigating you."

"You're jumpy. And when you're jumpy, the lab jumps."

"I don't know what that means."

Sweets rolled his eyes and simultaneously crammed a fry into his mouth and turned the paper sideways with two fingers so she could read it more easily.

"See this?" he pointed at the young EMT. "White, twenties, thin. That's hardly anything to go on."

"Angela got a positive ID on record."

"Yeah. A white kid from Idaho. That won't be a problem," Sweets said sarcastically.

Brennan opened her mouth to inform him about the no doubt numerous problems it would cause, given demographics trends published by the U.S. Census, but caught up to his scowl before she even started. She felt slightly proud of herself for deducing that much.

"Have you done a background check? Pulled records?"

"I know how to do my job, Dr. Brennan," Sweets said gently, but Brennan was surprised. Sweets was nothing if not deferential; this sort of backbone didn't line up with his previous personality she had recorded.

She mulled over that for an entire minute, during which her food came, giving her a few more moments to carve out the first bites.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Sweets?" she asked finally, and was rewarded by Sweets' shocked face.

"What?"

"I said-"

"I heard you."

"Was that a surprising question?" she asked, savoring the spinach (chopped finely, just as she liked it), before taking another large bite. She had forgotten when she had last eaten, and two glasses of wine weren't tiding her over, despite her knowledge of how many carbohydrates were in the glasses.

"From you, yes," Sweets said honestly, scratching the back of his head between the place where his tie went around his collar and his hairline.

"Am I incorrect in my hypothesis?"

"No."

It was Brennan's turn to be surprised. "Why?" she asked.

"Am I upset?"

"Are you upset?" she asked in genuine shock. "Why?"

Sweets sighed hugely, grinning at their exchange, before sobering up once more. "The case is getting to everyone," he said evasively. "I know Hodgins is having trouble sleeping also, and Cam is so overworked she's sleeping on her feet practically. And Booth – well…he's still a total wreck about the whole thing. The cave in, and of course...you know."

Brennan processed this very slowly as she chewed in tempo to her thoughts. "You're having trouble sleeping?" she finally plucked out, and Sweets looked astonished she hadn't taken the rather obvious lure of Booth. She declined to tell Sweets she knew much more about Booth than he let on.

Sweets only gaped at her, and when it became obvious he was still working through his own thought process, Brennan set down her fork to take a gulp of water, and eat a couple of his crispy, rejected French fries.

"I…uh…yes. A little."

"Have you tried medication?" she asked blandly.

Sweets flushed. "Oh..er..it's not like that."

Brennan frowned. "What is it like? Has Ms. Wick not yet satisfied your sexual needs?"

Sweets winced, and his shoulders shrugged as if he wished they would go higher than his supraspinatus muscle would allow.

"Oh God, no. And in the future, could we please not talk about sexual…anything?"

Brennan looked slightly hurt, but filed that away under important notes about she and Booth's new relationship, wondering slightly with amusement, if Sweets would have made the same blanket statement if he knew what was already occurring.

"Very well," she said steadily. "Please continue."

Sweets winced and looked extremely uncomfortable. "It's…it's really nothing."

"Booth says when people say that, it's because they want others to pry further, but simultaneously want to save their metaphorical face."

Sweets squinted at her, shaking his head before understanding cleared. "Oh. Yes. To save face is an idiomatic expression about pride. I suppose that's correct. Does Booth give you a lot of these helpful hints?"

"Booth also says when someone changes the subject after a direct question, that's called deflection," she answered, with a small smile for both Sweets and the waitress who came to clear away their plates.

"Uh," Sweets said brilliantly.

"Ice cream, Dr. Sweets?" asked Brennan.

"Uh," said Sweets again.

"We'll take two brownie sundaes," Brennan told the waitress, who had returned almost immediately to fill their water glasses.

"Sure, no problem," the waitress said cheerily, and pulled out fresh spoons and napkins from her apron.

Sweets waited for her to leave before rounding his accusatory gaze on Brennan, his mouth parted at the injustice of having the tables turned so easily.

"I'm not deflecting," he said.

"Booth also says when someone repeats a lot of what your question was in the answer, that usually means he or she is lying."

Sweets frowned, stymied by his own science.

"Booth is very knowledgeable," he said at last.

"I know," said Brennan simply, creasing the napkin into her lap.

"Dr. Brennan," Sweets began awkwardly, and Brennan simply waited, her hands folded, her eyes wide and attentive.

"I…well…You see…" Sweets was suffering through his non starters, but he firmed his voice and resolution and went on. "A few weeks ago, I overheard you talking to Angela."

Brennan only shook her head in incomprehension slightly.

"I…er…you were talking about how it was sometimes difficult to sleep."

Brennan felt goosebumps erupt suddenly along her skin, and for the second time that evening wished she hadn't ordered food so that she would have been free to leave.

"I don't remember," she said stiffly.

Sweets looked at her with a compassionate twist to his small smile. "Yes, you do."

They both paused to look up with twin thank you's when their sundaes were set before them.

Brennan immediately dug in and forced a large bite into her mouth so she wouldn't have to speak.

"There are elements in my life," Sweets said very slowly and deliberately, as if Brennan was a bomb triggered to go off at the wrong word. "That are extremely…" he searched for the word with a bite of ice cream dripping off his spoon," …unpleasant," he finished, somewhat flatly.

"Currently?" asked Brennan in surprise.

Sweets shrugged as he finally wrapped his mouth around his first bite and groaned in satisfaction.

"I am not aware of anything that should be troubling you," Brennan said with a faint frown.

Sweets almost smiled. "I don't tell you everything Dr. Brennan."

"You make us tell you everything," she protested.

"It's different. That's for work. I'm your psychologist."

Brennan sniffed angrily. "If you would like a separate working relationship, please just say so."

Sweets wilted again. "That's not what I'm saying at all," he sighed. "It's just that our relationship is compounded upon the fact that I cannot unlearn what I learn about you in therapy."

"It's not therapy," Brennan responded automatically, parroting what Booth had said countless times.

"Our sessions," Sweets amended exasperatedly.

"I understand," Brennan said in what she thought was her most reasonable tone. By Sweets' reaction, it most obviously was not.

"And you know…" Sweets scuffed his spoon into his sundae the same way Parker often scuffed his shoes into the dirt, with the exact same expression. Fascinating. "There's just…there are things…that, you know, right? Just can't…things you can't get past."

Brennan shook her head in exasperation.

Sweets looked up pitifully under his eyebrows, painfully aware that therapy was probably this painful for everyone else to muddle through, and with a sigh, tried to clarify. "What you said…about having trouble falling asleep because of the traumatic incidents –"

"I never said traumatic," Brennan contradicted loudly, and then ducked her head when someone from the bar looked over curiously. She leaned forward with a hiss. "It's different."

"Well for me," Sweets said, using appropriate 'myself' language he encouraged his clients to use, "I have been trouble sleeping, and I'm afraid of it compromising me to work to the best of my ability. This is also complicated by…well, you and Agent Booth."

Brennan frowned. "What? Why?"

"Your issues are integral to the lab's function."

"We are the epicenter," she rephrased.

"Yes, and you are not sound."

Brennan flushed a little, not sure of how to assure Sweets that she and Booth were quite sound again, but in a different way and without giving away their new secret. She opted for silence, to Sweets' unsurprise.

"I'd really like to work with you two in more sessions," Sweets continued, his eyes looking more drawn and pinched as he leaned forward into the fluorescent light.

"That's not necessary," Brennan parried, trying not to laugh at what Booth would have to say about that.

"It is. You cannot have it both ways Dr. Brennan. It's either we work our best as a team, or you stay angry at Booth."

"I'm past that," she said with a toss of her head, mulishly turning to look out at the street as she chewed on a brownie bite.

"Since when?" asked Sweets in amusement.

"A few days ago," Brennan answered cautiously, disliking the avid interest she had sparked in the otherwise flat eyes of her table mate.

"What happened a few days ago?" demanded Sweets.

Brennan was silent, even stilling her spoon from scraping the bottom of her bowl.

"Did you guys fight?" Sweets guessed.

"No."

"Did you make up?"

"Define make up."

"Are things back to the way they were?"

"No."

"Yeah, sorry. That was a dumb question. Of course they can't go back."

Brennan blinked at him in confusion. "Why not?"

"What Agent Booth did is…well, irreparable, I would think."

"Is it?" asked Brennan in surprise.

"Isn't it?" asked Sweets in just as much surprise.

"Gordon-Gordon said –"

"You went to Dr. Wyatt instead of me?" Sweets was genuinely hurt, and Brennan winced, wondering if that was the sort of information Booth would have told her to 'keep to herself.'

"Uh…actually…well…"

"Was it Booth's idea?" Sweets asked in a surly, upset voice.

Brennan nodded, smiling tightly, hoping that this was sufficient to placate the tantruming young psychologist.

"What did he say?" Sweets sighed at last, poking around the dribbles of where the hot fudge had melted the ice cream back into sweetened milk.

"He said," Brennan began, stalling for time, and trying to think of a not-so-close to the truth answer to forestall Sweets. "Well, I said I wouldn't have minded telling Booth what was in the letters-"

"If he had just asked?" Sweets asked shrewdly.

"Yes. How did you-"

"It's the violation of privacy, and not the act itself, that angered you. That much was obvious."

"Was it?" she asked bewilderedly. "Why did no one tell me? That would have saved a lot of time."

Sweets began to laugh, but for no discernible reason to Brennan. He trailed off with an awkward chuckle.

Brennan watched him coolly for a minute to check if he was finished laughing at her. When it became apparent he was, she continued. "And then…well then Cam asked me to forgive Booth, and I did. And now we are trying to…move forward," Brennan finished rather lamely.

"That's very mature of you, Dr. Brennan," Sweets said nodding, sucking on his spoon.

"Thank you," she said, uncertain if it was a compliment or not.

"What else did Dr. Wyatt say?"

"I'm not sure," she prevaricated.

"Dr. Brennan," said Sweets with a small, sad smile.

"I'm sorry," she said. "There are some things that need to remain…well between Booth and myself."

Sweets looked instantly contrite. "Of course. My point was that…well, I'm glad you two are working on it together, but the rest of the lab needs help."

"What? Why?"

"They are stressed by your tension with Booth."

"Oh, some of that is for show," Brennan said with a small laugh, and Sweets froze.

"What?"

"Because we've been bugged," Brennan reminded him in a low voice, glancing around the diner not at all surreptitiously. "But we know that the movers are trying to drive Booth and I apart, or are at least taking advantage of thinking that they are."

Sweets looked surprised that she could surmise as much. But then he grinned a little. "Booth's idea?"

Brennan nodded. "He didn't tell me at first…he was cruel."

Sweets was immediately concerned. "I'm so sorry – is everything okay?"

"It was a means to an end," Brennan said severely, squashing the thought along with the last drips of ice cream.

"Not everything is a Utilitarian ideal," Sweets said reasonably.

"It should be," Brennan snapped, but she could hear the lie as well as Sweets. Zack had proved that. She wondered idly if he had ever gotten her letter. She hadn't seen one from him in her letterbox.

"Booth was cruel," Sweets observed sadly.

Brennan grabbed his hand impulsively, and was surprised to see that he looked moved. She supposed she had done something right.

"I'm sorry Sweets," she said sincerely. "I'm sorry that things are difficult for you, and that Booth and I are making it more so."

Sweets smiled. "Well, I suppose everything has to be a bit better if you don't hate him with the fire of a thousand suns."

Brennan wrinkled her nose. "Shakespeare?"

Sweets nodded guiltily. "_The Taming of the Shrew_."

"Why were you reading that?"

"Seeking inspiration."

Brennan nodded, but then frowned. "Hey!"

Sweets laughed. "I was teasing, Dr. Brennan."

She reluctantly joined in.

The waitress dropped off the check, and she reached automatically.

"I had food before you," Sweets protested.

"It doesn't matter."

"Dr.-"

"I got it," she said.

Sweets slumped back in his chair in gratitude.

Brennan surprised them both by patting his shoulder before she left. She tried not to meet his eye outside the glass window front as he watched in astonishment as she turned left instead of right at the corner. They both knew which way was left.

It was only a few blocks to the Hoover building, and it was beautiful out. The humidity of the late summer was dying down, and the cicadas were humming. She took her time and didn't even flash her badge at the security guard, preferring to avoid the hassle and just walk through the metal detector. No one else was in line, and she wasn't in a hurry.

She rode the elevator to the fourth floor and walked out into the hum of the bullpen, dying down in the eight thirty wake. There were only a few agents lingering at their desks, and Brennan recognized that air of desperate comradery that came with having no where else to go. She smiled politely, and slipped through the rows until she came to the wall on the left and turned into Booth's office.

Or at least, she tried.

It was locked, the windows closed, and Brennan felt an overwhelming sense of unfairness inundate her. She had been so sure Booth was going to be there, she hadn't even considered taking her car and wrestling it through traffic to the outer wards of the district, where Booth lived in a slightly gentrified neighborhood, right on the cusp of a poorer one.

She pulled out her phone, irked, and tried his home line. Nothing. She had been berating him to get rid of his home line – an extra $50 a month that he didn't need to be spending - but he was attached to his old rotary phone that she had gotten him by extension, and she didn't have the heart to press her point. She called again, just to listen to it ring, and hung up, disappointed. She turned and left the building, lingering in the breezeway under the stone square pillars, feeling rather sorry for herself.

Her phone buzzed in her hand. She didn't need the caller ID; he had his own vibrating frequency she had assigned to his caller ID. But she smiled at his doofy face "pressed up" against the glass of her phone, pretending to be trapped inside her cellular device, before picking up.

"Brennan."

"Where are you?"

"At your office," she laughed. "I called your apartment. Where are _you_?"

"At _your_ apartment!" They both laughed.

Brennan felt giddy, and she thrust her spare hand, still fisted around her keys, into the air to flag down a passing taxi.

"Hold on," she smiled. "I'm coming to you."

"Don't keep me waiting," he said with a smirk she could practically hear. "I'm in your bed."

Brennan slammed the taxi door harder than necessary as Booth continued to make dirty taunts all the way home.


End file.
